Pork Industry Could Face Shutdowns Without Immigrant Labor

U.S. pork producers add $39 billion annually to the nation’s economy and support 550,000 jobs. But maintaining this output is a struggle, says the industry, due to critical labor shortages. Without a viable workforce, “production costs will continue to increase, leading to higher food prices for consumers,” the National Pork Producers Council states. “In some cases, a shortage of labor could lead to farms and packing plants shutting down, causing serious financial harm to those operations and their communities.”

As more and more young people are leaving rural communities for big cities, it’s workers from outside the United States who are revitalizing these communities.

Michael Formica, assistant vice president of domestic policy and counsel for the council, explains the problem like this: Without access to foreign labor, pork packing plants and hog farmers would be hard-pressed to fill their employee ranks — positions that can number in the thousands at a single location. “You can advertise these jobs all you want, and you still can’t fill them,” says Formica, who lives in McLean, Virginia, and represents pork producers nationally. Foreign workers, on the other hand, see processing work as so “stable and well-paying, that they’ll even pick up and move their families to take these jobs.”

Pork processing is demanding work that doesn’t require an education. But over the last two decades, the size of the U.S.-born population with a high school degree or less has significantly decreased, particularly among workers aged 25 to 44. As a result, there are not enough workers to fill all the open pork processing jobs, and the shortage is growing more pronounced. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that by 2024 the United States will be short  3.6 million low-skilled workers.

Producers say there aren’t even enough low-skilled immigrants authorized to work in the United States to fill the jobs. And the visa producers can use to hire foreign guest workers, the H-2A, is insufficient for the industry’s needs. “I hear complaints from our producers that show just how burdensome the process to legally secure foreign laborers is all the time,” says Dustin Baker, deputy director of economics and domestic production for the pork council. Perhaps most problematic is that the H-2A visa was designed for farmers who need seasonal help only. Pork production is a year-round business that requires a consistent workforce. “The seasonal nature of the H-2A program just doesn’t work for us,” says Baker. “You can’t just flip a switch off and on.”

The National Pork Producers Council has proposed solutions for all of this: Allow undocumented workers who are already in the United States to work legally; and create a non-seasonal agricultural visa. “We want to make sure those workers remain in place so that we can remain the world’s low-cost supplier of pork,” Formica says.

He adds that such reforms would benefit the communities supported by hog farms and pork plants, as well. “As more and more young people are leaving rural communities for big cities, it’s workers from outside the United States who are revitalizing these communities,” Formica says. “They come looking for opportunities and, with their families, bring new life into these areas. So lifting them up lifts everybody up.”