Minnesota Chamber study finds immigrant population shifting to higher-paying jobs

More than 15% of workers at Intek Plastics in Hastings are foreign-born, most of them Hmong and Karen.

Intek remains committed to diversifying its labor force because, like other Minnesota employers, it has had such a hard time recruiting in the state's historically tight job market of the past decade, said Reeanna Crownhart, Intek's human resources specialist.

Crownhart was at the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce's 2025 Workforce Summit on Wednesday, where there were talks and sessions on immigration as the organization released its latest study on the state's immigrant population and labor force.

International migration accounted for 94% of Minnesota's net population growth during the last four years, the study found.

"Slowing population growth is impacting [the state's] near-term economic and budget outlook," Sean O'Neil, the Minnesota Chamber's economic development and research director, told about 170 business owners, executives and human resource professionals at the Brooklyn Park event. "So immigration has become increasingly important to Minnesota in recent years as the state faces underlying demographic changes that are slowing its population and labor force."

The jump in foreign-born residents is being seen in workplaces statewide, the study found. Minnesota has gained 113,000 immigrant workers since 2010, with 22,500 of them joining the workforce since 2019.

Minnesota's total immigrant population is comparatively low, standing at 8.6% compared to the national rate of 14.3%. Among immigrants, undocumented residents have declined over the decade and now account for less than 2% of the population, the study found.

The chamber has tracked immigrant work trends for 16 years and also found there's a shift of employment for Minnesota's foreign-born population.

As immigrants become increasingly educated — with more college graduates — they are entering higher-skilled jobs, the study found. More are joining manufacturing, health care and professional services fields and fewer are taking hospitality and retail jobs — a trend that is raising their average wages.

That shift to higher-skilled work is "really critical for us to sustain our economic growth over time. So we really see that as a positive," O'Neil said.

For Intek, the immigrants the company hired proved hard-working and productive, Crownhart said. So officials decided to continue offering translation services, English classes and other services in an effort to recruit more of them.

Intek does not rely on H-1B or H-2B worker visa programs, but other companies worry there could be restrictions or that programs could shrink under the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump has banned diversity efforts for federal contractors and called for increased detentions and deportations of unauthorized immigrants. He also signed executive orders that will soon terminate the temporary work visas of visitors from various countries, including Venezuela and Haiti.

His administration also promised to more thoroughly scrutinize and audit workplaces that use temporary work visas to help staff their farms, factories and seasonal businesses, immigration attorneys from Fredrikson & Byron told attendees.

"With the current immigration landscape many programs that give people work authorization now will no longer be extended in the next couple of months ... so we will be losing a good number of individuals who are eligible now to work lawfully in the U.S.," immigration attorney Loan Huynh said.

If that happens, it will make the labor shortage more severe, she said. The firm works with clients who already can't find workers, especially for lower-skilled jobs that U.S. workers don't want.

Many clients are asking for help applying for temporary H-2A and H-2B visas for farms and agricultural operations and seasonal shifts at factories. Many workers are in Minnesota for eight- to 10-month stints.

Several companies voiced concerns about what will happen if the visa programs are restricted or canceled for immigrants from certain countries.

"There's fear we are hearing from the manufacturing space," said Brent Johnson, the Minnesota-based vice president of business development for KFI Staffing.

His said his factory clients want to know if their temporary immigrant workers will be affected once immigration enforcement efforts move beyond targeting the few immigrants who have criminal records.

The uncertainty of when legal immigrants will have their cases heard is also an issue, companies said.

Traci Tapani, co-president of Wyoming Machine in Stacy, Minn., and a U.S. Chamber board member, said she knows the national discourse and policy debate have shifted.

"[But] the economic realities remain unchanged, said Tapani, who also chairs the Minnesota Chamber Foundation board. "Immigration is an essential ingredient of Minnesota's long-term economic success."

The data, she said, shows more immigrants are needed to make the economy grow.

"It has nothing to do with rhetoric or who do we want here and who we do not want," she said. "That's something that businesses have been advocating for a very long time."

Jon Baselice, who until last week was vice president of Immigration Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told the summit he knows there is a bigger emphasis on the government's immigration enforcement actions since Trump took office.

At the same time, other creative ideas are being introduced in Washington.

For example, Trump floated earlier this week the idea of a "gold" visa card for rich foreigners. Anyone paying $5 million could be put on the path toward citizenship.

"The beauty of the idea is that if you actually want to get more bang for your buck, you need to have more legal immigrants coming into the country," Baselice said.