Does the US meatpacking industry rely heavily on immigrant workers?
By Tory Coffin
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YES
The nonprofit Migration Policy Institute estimates that 37% of meat-processing workers in the U.S. are immigrants. Plants in some Midwestern states rely even more heavily on foreign-born labor—58% in South Dakota and 66% in Nebraska.
The meat-processing industry has historically depended upon immigrant labor, particularly non-English speaking workers with little education. In recent decades the industry built large new plants in smaller cities and rural areas. Midwestern employers recruited U.S.-born as well as Mexican-born workers from south Texas and other areas with high unemployment rates.
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