As a certified “welcoming city,” Louisville understands the importance of the immigrant community to its prosperity. Given the current demand for workers, it is worth highlighting the importance of immigrants to the labor supply within the Louisville region.
The immigrant population has grown exponentially in recent decades. The most recent Census estimates show that immigrants comprise 6% of the region’s population, more than double the percentage from 20 years ago.
Immigrants are an important driver of the region’s population growth. Domestically, a greater number of people have moved out of the Louisville region than moved into the region for the past several years, including the two years prior to the pandemic. International net migration has been more than enough to offset this loss in domestic migrants. However, the pandemic and restrictive immigration policy have hampered international migration. Between 2016 and 2021, the level of net international migration in the United States fell by more than 75%.
Within the context of the current labor shortage, the role of immigrants as a key supply of talent should not be overlooked. Within the Louisville region, more than 60% of the region’s immigrants are in their prime working years. This is reflected in the labor force participation rate among immigrants, which is nine percentage points higher than the labor force participation rate for the region’s native born.
Immigrants are overrepresented in many of the region’s key industries, including those where employment levels have not yet fully rebounded to their pre-pandemic levels, such as leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, and construction.
Louisville Metro is doubling down on its efforts to promote the region as a welcoming place to immigrants with the recent passage of a language access ordinance that requires city services be made readily available to individuals who do not speak English. Employers struggling to fill their open positions can follow suit and strategize ways to tap into a key source of labor in the immigrant community.
