Unemployment in other sectors "should" result in a subway construction boom/plummeting costs only if low-skill labor were the largest cost component of subway construction in the recent past. Was it? I tried searching for a few minutes on Google Scholar to find the share of subway project costs going to labor but didn't turn up anything; maybe you can find something.
I did find articles that say labor costs have increased over time, but none that were quantitative about it. Without quantification it's not helpful.
Now extend that thinking. What if low-skill labour isn't the largest cost component in anything much worthwhile that we're not already doing? How would that affect the reasoning in this FAQ?
I did find articles that say labor costs have increased over time, but none that were quantitative about it. Without quantification it's not helpful.