Lost in the tragic human toll current ICE operations in Minnesota are having is the long-term damage the siege is doing to the state’s economic vitality. Yet, business and economic development leaders have been largely silent despite a decade or more of talk about the importance of attracting a diverse workforce to Minnesota. Make no mistake, we are losing skilled workers in high-demand occupations every day, and the climate of fear, intimidation and trampling of civil rights is certainly making Minnesota an unappealing place for other workers to consider migrating to.
The Minnesota Chamber, Business Partnership, Greater MSP, all talk about the importance of our labor force. The Minnesota Chamber says, for example, “The shortage of available talent has broad consequences, constraining growth in vital sectors such as housing construction, childcare and health care services.” For several years, Greater MSP has focused on talent, saying “the key to growing our economy is people.”
Workers fuel our economy, and we aren’t having enough babies to keep up. Over the years business and industry groups have mounted a range of initiatives to attract talent from elsewhere including from other countries. And it has worked. These workers have arrived, attained skills and education and become productive and valued employees in a wide array of industries. However, now, when workers are being targeted, those business and industry groups are mum.
This isn’t politics. This is economics. For example, Minnesota’s long-term care sector employs more than 80,000 professionals as Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs), Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), Personal Care Attendants (PCAs) and Home Health Aides (HHAs). This is in addition to about 8,000 (RNs) Registered Nurses. Nearly one in three CNAs are immigrants who are U.S. citizens who have gone to school to earn credentials. Nearly 14% of Minnesota’s overall healthcare workers are immigrants, and they are leaving Minnesota. Who can blame them? But more critically, who will replace them? We don’t have the workers in the pipeline to fill current demand, let alone enough to meet the needs of our aging population.
The Long-Term Care Imperative, a partnership of Care Providers of Minnesota and Leading Age Minnesota representing short-term care, assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing homes, notes there are some 17,000 caregiver positions vacant right now.
I have seen first-hand workers afraid to come to work at a nursing home where my partner lives with dementia. These immigrants have taken care of her every day for two years by dressing her, helping her eat, engaging with her, bathing her. Yet now they fear for what will happen when they leave their homes (many of which they own) and drive to work. These legal U.S. citizens openly share their fears and serious deliberations about moving to other states and even other countries. One person who is a Trained Medication Aide already has job offers from another facility in a state that isn’t being targeted by ICE. She also talks about going to another country. She is partway to earning her LPN degree. We sure could use another LPN since the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) estimates we will need more than 11,500 LPNs between 2022 and 2032. But it is highly likely this staff member will leave Minnesota because of what is happening with ICE. I don’t blame her. She doesn’t want to raise her children here. In another instance, an RN who works part-time at the nursing home and part-time at a major Twin Cities hospital also talks about leaving. She knows that other places are desperate for trained nurses. She says, “I left one country because I was afraid. I will leave this country to not be afraid.”
Every day the current administration’s tactics and policies on immigration are hurting Minnesota’s economy by driving skilled workers away. Where are the voices of Minnesota’s economic development and business leaders on this issue? How will we ever attract new workers after this? Who will be there to help my partner and the thousands of other residents of nursing homes across the state when the immigrant workforce leaves?
Ellen Watters is a longtime consultant in economic and workforce development, former senior vice president of economic development for the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce and former chair of the Ramsey County Workforce Investment Board.
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