DigitalBridge CEO says immigration would ease telecommunications worker shortage

DigitalBridge is an investment company, whose US assets include about 368,000 miles of fiber, about 250,000 macro cell sites and about 48,000 small cells. Globally, it owns nearly 450 data centers. It owns 29 companies around the world with a total of about 29,000 employees. CEO Marc Ganzi recently commented on the telecommunications labor shortage. “Our biggest problem, I can't get people back to work,” Ganzi said. “I can't get people to micro-trench ditches. I can't get people to climb poles. I can't get people to build cell towers fast enough. We have a massive labor shortage issue. Supply chains are correcting themselves, but our biggest challenge today is keeping up with customer demand.” And he talked about the usual solutions such as training more people and tapping veterans. But Ganzi was then pointedly asked a question that others seem too afraid to ask: Is it time to allow more immigration to the US? Ganzi said it’s not a popular idea, unfortunately. “Look, immigration can be good,” he said. “I mean, we've sourced a lot of great RF engineers from places like India and the Middle East where they're highly educated, they're vastly underpaid in their countries. Look: if Americans aren't going to take those jobs, then we need, you know, next woman up or next man up. I don't think our economy can sit and wait. We've had some of those challenges and immigration's one possible lever that we have.”