Source: MEATINGPLACE, 2/20/17

A new Bloomberg News report says Canada’s restrictive immigration policies compounded the meat industry’s labor shortage there and suggests President Donald Trump’s proposals to limit foreign workers could be as disruptive to U.S. meat production.

The article cites a Canadian Meat Council estimate that 9 percent of jobs at the country’s rural slaughterhouses go unfilled, while noting immigrant workers account for 35 percent of U.S. animal slaughtering and processing jobs.

An estimated three-quarters of workers at processing plants in Iowa, the largest pork-producing state, are immigrants, mostly from Mexico, Iowa State University economist David Swenson is quoted as saying.

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