America's Worker Shortage: Why Manufacturing Companies Need Immigrants

Bloomberg

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00:00You can work in, in caramel glass without no experience, without no English.

00:09Good for an immigrant and anyone who needs a job.

00:15My job is machine technician.

00:20I'm making parts of the window like this.

00:24You make it and then put the glove on.

00:27You're moved from South Sudan to the city of Fargo 14 years ago, seeking a better life.

00:34In 2013, she started working at Cardinal Glass and has been an employee there ever since.

00:40Many immigrants, we work like a family and friends and teamwork.

00:47And we help, we support each other.

00:51So here in Fargo, we have 347 teammates.

00:55About 70% of our team is comprised of people born outside of the United States.

01:02Plant manager Mike Arntzen has worked at Cardinal Glass Fargo since it opened in 1998.

01:08The company manufactures residential glass for windows and doors with 10,000 employees across its 49 locations.

01:15In Fargo alone, it employs about 400 workers.

01:20What we want to do is attract and hire the most qualified, the best qualified teammates that we can attract.

01:29And it just so happens that a lot of those folks that we're attracting happen to be immigrants.

01:34And we're more than happy to have them here.

01:37According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, North Dakota has the worst worker shortage in America,

01:43with only 30 workers for every 100 available jobs.

01:48That's well below the national average of 95 workers for every 100 jobs.

01:53There are 30,000 open jobs in North Dakota.

01:56And although our workforce continues to grow, if we get every high school and college graduate,

02:03every individual coming out of our corrections system, every person on disability into the workforce tomorrow,

02:11we would still have thousands of open jobs.

02:13And so we really do need to be looking outside of our state's borders and outside of our nation's borders

02:18to help identify how we can recruit workers to fill the jobs that we have available.

02:24Katie Ralston Howe is director of North Dakota's Workforce Division,

02:29overseeing the newly created Office of Legal Immigration.

02:33Their goal?

02:34To bring together immigrants seeking employment and companies that need workers.

02:39With the political climate that we're in, immigration has become a really hot topic.

02:44And when we talk about the work that we're doing through the Office of Legal Immigration,

02:48a lot of times the conversation does go to conversations around the border or illegal immigration,

02:54and that's really not what we're doing.

02:57Really, our focus is proactively identifying appropriate pathways and programs that we can utilize

03:03to help fill jobs in North Dakota.

03:06Employers have been responding really well.

03:09There's a ton of enthusiasm around the work that we're doing.

03:12And communities are responding well, too.

03:14And so we've been able to really work with those who are already working in this space.

03:20North Dakota may be the extreme case, but its shortage of workers can be seen in various forms across the country.

03:27According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, labor shortages affect just about every industry in nearly every state.

03:34Although shortages have become less significant over the past two years,

03:38the latest national data show that we still have over 8 million job openings in the U.S.

03:44and fewer than 7 million people looking for those jobs.

03:48North Dakota businesses like Cardinal Glass have no doubts about how important immigrant workers are to the success of its operations

03:55and to the North Dakota economy overall.

03:58As the economy grows, we need people to move to Fargo-Moorhead to help us run our businesses.

04:05And whether they come from Kansas City or New York City or Los Angeles or Somalia or Bosnia,

04:15we just need people to move here to help keep our economy growing.

04:20You don't even have to speak English to come work at Cardinal IG.

04:24We've cracked the code on that.

04:26We have master trainers that are multilingual that can train our new teammates in their native language.

04:33And so we have entry-level jobs where we can get people contributing right away.

04:40And as they grow in their comfort in those entry-level jobs,

04:43then they can graduate on to jobs with a little more difficulty, a little more skills required.

04:49And probably within the course of a year, they can be contributing in a lot of different ways.

04:57Since we first talked with Arnston, President Trump came to office

05:01and his administration has deported what it says are over 350,000 immigrants.

05:06We returned a year later to see what effect the administration's actions may have had on an employer like Cardinal Glass.

05:14We have 350 teammates here, 70% of those teammates were born outside the United States,

05:21but they're all legal immigrants, so it's had minimal effects so far.

05:25But there is a question about Haitian temporary protected status.

05:31We have a number of Haitian teammates here and about two dozen of those teammates are here still on a TPS status,

05:41temporary protected status.

05:44And so they may be asked to move back to Haiti next February unless something changes.

05:52We see that Haitian TPS gets extended beyond February.

05:56We are working at sponsoring those teammates, but that's a very, very long process.

06:02And I hope we can get it done by February, but I'm not sure that that's going to be possible.

06:09One of those Haitian teammates is Joseph Fleury, who has been in the United States since 2010 under temporary protected status,

06:17a status that is likely to end in February 2026.

06:22I got 11 years working here. I like to stay, but for the change the government make right now,

06:33so I'm scared because I got TPS and then they want to change everything.

06:43So I don't know how I can stay. I hope to stay because my country is so bad now.

06:54It's so bad because the gang kills people, kidnap people.

07:00So it's very difficult to go over there. If I go, how I can live over there?

07:07From your point of view, as somebody who employs these workers and others from outside the United States,

07:12what comes next to the United States? What should come next? How should we treat the immigration problem?

07:18You know, demographically, we are entering a major workforce shortage.

07:26And really, there's four ways to mitigate that shortage. Automation, local workforce development,

07:33which we're already at 75, 72% workforce participation rate, importing goods or inputs from other countries.

07:43And that's with the tariffs, it's kind of slowing down. And then immigration, importing workers from other countries.

07:52And so we have to keep up with workforce demands or it's going to affect our economy negatively.

07:59How much stress will that put on you, particularly if there's a worker shortage overall in North Dakota?

08:04Well, we're going to have to find 25 more teammates to hire. Fargo-Moorhead has a 72% workforce participation rate.

08:13So it's the highest in the country. We have like a 1.2% unemployment rate here in Fargo-Moorhead.

08:19For every unemployed worker, there are 2.4 open jobs here in Fargo-Moorhead.

08:25So it's not easy to find new teammates when you need them.

08:29And so if two dozen of my teammates and I don't know how many other Haitian folks are here in Fargo-Moorhead

08:37under temporary protected status, if they all have to move back to Haiti, it's going to leave a big hole.

08:44Despite the TPS extension being up in the air, the Fargo economy remains strong, an economy driven in part by immigrant workers.

08:53Our economy continues to grow. You know, we're doing really well.

08:58Workers are moving to the region because of the great job opportunities here.

09:04You know, at Cardinal IG and Fargo, our wages are 45% above what the nationwide average is for light industrial workers.

09:15So we are attracting probably more than our fair share of workers, but it's just not fast enough to keep up with our growing economy.

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