Candidate Donald Trump’s proposed immigration changes would “send shock waves through [Minnesota’s] economy” according to the StarTribune’s Emma Nelson and Christopher Vondracek. Those changes would bar refugees, carry out mass deportations and limit birthright citizenship. [1] Here are the perceived impact of such proposed changes on the State of Minnesota.
“Minnesota’s unemployment rate is lower than the U.S. as a whole, and employers are struggling to fill nearly 200,000 open jobs. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Minnesota’s labor shortage is among the country’s more severe, with just 51 workers for every 100 open jobs.”
According the the State’s Demographer, Susan Brower, “there is no other option for growing the workforce other than international immigration or a change in domestic migration patterns, which for 20 years have not worked in the favor of Minnesota. We’d have to see, really, a very drastic change both in domestic migration patterns but also in the level of international immigration to even begin to scratch the surface of meeting the current labor force needs that we have.”
The State currently “is home to about 480,000 foreign-born residents, comprising about 8.5% of the population. . . . Those residents tend to be younger than Minnesota’s native-born population, and most are in their prime working years, filling jobs from agriculture to education to health care. Between 2011 and 2021, immigrants comprised half the state’s labor force growth, though they made up less than 11% of the workforce.”
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[1] Smith & Vondracek, A promised immigration crackdown if Trump wins re-election could cripple Minnesota’s workforce, StarTribune (May 2, 2024).