How has immigrant employment changed since the pandemic?

When business disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic left around 24 million workers in the United States without a job, about 1 in 4 of those workers were foreign-born.¹

Then came an economic recovery with strong labor demand but an insufficient supply of workers to meet it.

“Worker shortages coming out of COVID-19 were real, and employers were trying hard to find different solutions,” shared economist Bryce Ward, co-founder of ABMJ Consulting in Montana. “Immigrants were certainly part of the solution.”

In fact, foreign-born workers responded strongly to employers’ needs for workers. Foreign-born, a category in labor statistics, includes naturalized U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, refugees, other visa holders, and unauthorized immigrants.

Foreign-born employment numbers recovered to pre-pandemic levels a year and a half after shutdowns began, ahead of the levels of native-born workers and overall employment. Growth has continued at varying rates in Ninth District states and with some shifts across occupations.²

Growing, with mixed contributions across states

From January 2020 to July 2024, U.S. foreign-born employment has grown nearly 15 percent. That amount equals roughly 4 million foreign-born workers and includes about 75,000 workers in Ninth District states, according to estimates based on state panel microdata from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. ³

Foreign-born employment surpassed the national average in three Ninth District states—Montana, North Dakota, and Wisconsin (Figure 1). In Montana, foreign-born employment surged to 88 percent, but this increase has only been a small contributor to overall employment growth in the district (Figure 2). The state has a relatively small immigrant population, which makes up a minimal part of the overall labor force.

By contrast, North Dakota’s foreign-born employment increased at a smaller but still considerable pace and made up almost half of the state’s overall employment growth since early 2020. Wisconsin has a significantly larger immigrant population than North Dakota and Montana. A 24 percent increase in foreign-born workers made up more than half of Wisconsin’s employment growth.

Foreign-born labor has been a big contributor to Minnesota’s employment recovery from the effects of the pandemic, even though the state’s immigrant employment is growing slower than the national average. In Michigan and South Dakota, employment growth has been driven by native-born workers.

Lagging growth in South Dakota’s immigrant employment is no surprise to economic developers in that state. Some companies there have reportedly sought to address labor needs through temporary visa programs. Not all requests have been approved, but that is only one factor. The largest share of South Dakota’s immigrant workers in January 2020 were concentrated in production—mainly food production. Estimates show a 35 percent net decline of the state’s immigrant workers in those occupations. This loss offsets the state’s foreign-born employment growth.

Responding to high demand in the labor market, but not in all jobs

Immigrant workers tend to concentrate in a few occupations, and changes in the last four years have strengthened their presence in some parts of the labor market.

Health-care support occupations, such as nursing assistants and nursing home workers, added the largest number of immigrant workers in the region since the pandemic. The health care industry contributed the most to the district’s foreign-born employment growth (Figure 3). Growth in these occupations was strongest in Minnesota.

J.P Holwerda, senior director of workforce development with the International Institute of Minnesota, oversees a program that trained nearly 300 people from 39 different countries to take these types of jobs last year.

Holwerda credits the health care sector with providing a path for new arrivals to integrate into the workforce. “There is cultural competency, a consistent pay ladder, and all that results in making the sector attractive to immigrants,” he said.

Construction jobs, as well as jobs in installation, maintenance, and repair, saw the second highest inflow of foreign-born workers. Immigrants, mainly from Latin American countries, satisfied the strong demand for laborers. This includes drywall and roof installers, painters, and other entry-level jobs in the construction industry, said Dan McConnell, president of the Minnesota Building & Construction Trades Council.

But the concentration of immigrant workers has diminished in other occupations. For example, in health care the number of immigrant practitioners and other health care technical workers—jobs with higher entry requirements—declined by 10 percent across the region. Holwerda points out that recent arrivals from countries like Ukraine have degrees that they often cannot use. In addition, high demand in the industry post-pandemic may have presented opportunities for practitioners elsewhere.

There have also been considerable shifts away from occupations where foreign-born workers have been traditionally found. For example, many foreign-born workers in the region left jobs in food preparation and serving for other opportunities.

“Restrictions during the pandemic had restaurant workers playing musical chairs,” said Woodrow Piner, a director with the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters. “They needed a ‘chair’ to sit down, and many found it in construction jobs.”

While demand for workers has been gradually slowing, the need for workers remains. Andrea Olson, executive director with Community Action Partnership of North Dakota, said the organization has struggled to find 25 workers to do weatherization work, so they’re turning to foreign-born labor. “We are eager to engage immigrant workers through the Office of Legal Immigration. We hope to find a solution to our worker needs and improve the energy efficiency of people’s homes.”

Endnotes

1 The terms “foreign-born” and “immigrants” are used interchangeably throughout this article to refer to individuals who are not native-born U.S. citizens.

2 The Ninth Federal Reserve District serves the states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and 26 counties in northwestern Wisconsin. This analysis is based on data for all six states in their entirety, including areas not represented by the Ninth District.

3 The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a sample-based survey of 60,000 households from across the country, used to produce estimates on the characteristics of employed individuals. State figures for January 2020 and July 2024 are based on annual averages of nonseasonally adjusted monthly data to reduce short-term fluctuations. Statistics based on the CPS are subject to both sampling and nonsampling error.