FARGO -- Dan Hodgson is the founder of a number of companies. One is WorkforceHope.com , an online platform that helps businesses find and hire foreign workers.
These days, Hodgson is on a mission to spread a message, and that message has two parts.
Part one is this: Many businesses in North Dakota and in the U.S. face potential ruin in the coming years because as workers retire, there are not enough young workers to replace them.
Part two goes like this: Only by increasing legal immigration will America have enough workers to keep alive the companies that keep 401(k) balances healthy as well as the hospitals and nursing homes that keep loved ones alive and safe.
Hodgson said he knows of one hospital in North Dakota that sometimes turns away patients because they don't have enough workers to care for them.
And according to Hodgson, medical facilities in North Dakota are going broke spending down reserves in order to pay traveling nurses double the normal hourly rate.
Additionally, Hodgson said many nursing homes in the state are at risk of becoming delicensed due to staff shortages.
To add weight to his warnings, Hodgson points to estimates that assert unfilled jobs in North Dakota may number 45,000, while nationally there may be more than 10 million open job positions.
Unless legal immigration increases, the number of open job positions will grow exponentially, according to Hodgson, who said the reason is basic math.
He said the U.S. birth rate of about 1.6 births per woman is far short of the 2.5 children per woman required to ensure that vacant jobs get filled and the Social Security system remains solvent.
And according to Hodgson, the only places on Earth that have enough people to fix America's job gap are in Africa and Latin America.
"But today, you can't get them here," Hodgson said, adding that the people his company finds and helps bring to the U.S. "come with jobs."
According to Hodgson, some businesses are reporting that the cost of hiring workers can range between $38,000 and $80,000 per employee, as it takes between 6-10 hires to find a person willing to remain six months for entry-level positions.
"Businesses that have not yet seen the shortage have younger workforces that are not retiring at the rate of older workforces. But for most, the retirements possible in the next five years are between 15% and 25% of their current workforce," Hodgson said.
He added that both South Dakota and outstate Minnesota are experiencing about 50,000 unfilled positions per year.
Hodgson said those numbers may drop temporarily with seasonal H-2A and H-2B visa workers in fields like construction and agriculture, who can be in the U.S. without families for up to nine months and then must return to their countries.
Katie Ralston Howe, director of the workforce division of the North Dakota Commerce Department, said North Dakota measures job openings by allowing employers to post job opportunities on the Job Service North Dakota website.
"Not every employer posts their jobs on the website, though we encourage everyone to," Howe said, noting that the current number of posted job openings in the state is around 12,200.
Howe added that it's important to remember that many employers hire multiple people for the same position, particularly when it comes to nurses and truck drivers.
"They'll hire as many as they can get," Howe said.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there were about 23,000 job openings in North Dakota in July.
Whatever the actual number of job openings is, Howe said in North Dakota there have been signs things may be improving, as state officials are hearing from employers who say they are impressed with the current talent pool for vacancies.
"We are starting to hear a shift in the conversation with some employers," Howe said.
"That's not every employer, of course. But I'm hearing that from a number of different companies in different industries. So, maybe we're seeing the tide shift a little bit," she added.
According to Howe, foreign workers are an important part of the workforce picture and recruiting foreign-born talent is one piece of North Dakota's strategy.
But, she added, "we still need to be focusing on students, career technical education, colleges and universities, training or retraining adult job seekers or learners, and retaining employees we already have."
The North Dakota Department of Commerce recently announced that the application portal is now open for the Office of Legal Immigration Grant Program, which is designed to support employers and communities in recruiting, retaining, and integrating new Americans into the state's workforce and communities.
Applications will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis, with funds available until June 30, 2025.
When it comes to keeping a company fully staffed, Thomas Shorma said that was never a problem at WCCO Belting in Wahpeton, North Dakota, which Shorma headed for more than two decades before retiring in 2022, the year WCCO Belting was sold to Continental, a large corporation based in Germany.
According to Shorma, WCCO Belting had about 30 workers when he took over the family business around 2001. When he retired in 2022, Shorma said the company had 300 employees who spoke 10 different languages.
Shorma said when he began running the company more than 20 years ago, he put a sign over his door that said they were always looking for great people.
"It (the sign) never said, black, red, white or green. It never said male, female. It never said Catholic, Muslim. It never said gay, straight," Shorma said, adding that nothing mattered besides talent and values.
"Were they genuinely good people? Did they have talents? Beyond that, we really didn't care," Shorma said, noting that when Continental bought WCCO Belting's two sites -- one in Wahpeton and one in Arlington, Texas -- they were the only fully-staffed factories in Continental's stable of properties.
"Yes, there's going to be a growing shortage of workforce, but you have to embrace automation, technology and training; when you do that, people will come," said Shorma, who is the former chairman of the North Dakota District Export Council and a long-standing member of the North Dakota Trade Office.
When it comes to immigration, there can be downsides for some U.S. workers when foreign workers are hired to fill job openings.
But, in general, the positives of legal immigration often outweigh the negatives for the U.S. economy and American workers as a whole, particularly in certain sectors like health care.
That's according to Nicole Simpson, a professor of economics at Colgate University who teaches courses on immigration, macroeconomics, international economics and poverty.
Simpson, who recently gave a lecture on immigration at Concordia College in Moorhead, said in a phone interview that many countries outside the U.S. have immigration policies that involve regular monitoring of where worker shortages are happening.
When necessary, she said, those countries make policy changes regarding things like the numbers of people allowed in and the ways people may enter a country legally.
"The U.S. is behind on that," Simpson said, adding there has not been a substantial overhaul of U.S. immigration policy since the 1960s.
Simpson said in many nations, immigration is largely employment-based, whereas in the U.S. who is allowed in largely hinges on things like family ties.
According to Simpson, U.S. policymakers have long understood what is needed regarding immigration reform and improving America's workforce situation, adding that when it comes to a solution, "It's just a matter of political will to figure out what everybody can live with."
As an advocate for reforming the current pathways for people to legally come to the United States to work, Hodgson said the answer is simple in a practical sense, but complicated when politics are figured in.
"Somebody who is running for office should say: 'The real problem we're facing is running out of people,' '' he said.
"All I can do is explain the problem and optimize the existing pathways," Hodgson added.