A thoughtful conversation about immigration and southern Alberta’s workforce
By Lethbridge Herald on February 18, 2026.
AT THE LEGISLATURE- LETHBRIDGE EAST MLA NATHAN NEUDORF
Conversations about immigration in Canada have become increasingly loud, and often polarized. While opinions vary widely, there is broad agreement that this is not a simple issue with an easy or singular solution. As the MLA for LethbridgeEast, my role is not to set federal immigration policy, but it is to listen to our community and ensure that the realities of southern Alberta are part of the provincial and national conversations.
Locally, one reality comes up again and again when meeting with employers, workers, and economic development leaders: our region has opportunity, but we are struggling to find enough people to fill it.
Manufacturing is a clear example.
According to 2024 data from Statistics Canada, manufacturing accounted for 71 per cent of the total value of exports from the Lethbridge area, representing roughly $1.6 billion in export activity. In fact, Lethbridge now has the highest exports per person of any major city in Alberta, with each manufacturing worker generating nearly $197,000 in exports annually.
This growth is not theoretical. Between 2016 and 2024, manufacturing exports from Lethbridge increased by 163 per cent, also the fastest growth rate among major Alberta cities. This speaks to the strength, productivity, and global competitiveness of this sector right here in southern Alberta.
Manufacturing also plays a substantial role in local employment. A 2025 report commissioned by Economic Development Lethbridge confirms that when direct and indirect jobs are considered, the manufacturing sector supports more than 17,000 jobs in the Lethbridge region, representing roughly onequarter of all employed individuals in the area (excluding selfemployed workers). Beyond employment, the sector contributes $4.24 billion to Alberta’s GDP and generates more than $1.1 billion in tax revenue across federal, provincial, and municipal governments.
Just as important, these are not lowwage positions. In 2024, the average hourly wage in Lethbridge’s manufacturing sector was $30.31 per hour, comparable to the average across all industries locally. Provincially, manufacturing wages are even higher, with average weekly earnings in 2025 sitting more than five per cent above the provincial average across all sectors.
Despite this strength, many manufacturers in southern Alberta report ongoing difficulty finding and retaining enough skilled workers to sustain growth. I have heard directly from employers who have invested significant time and resources into training employees, only to lose them due to challenges within the national Temporary Foreign Worker program and a lack of clear pathways in Provincial Nominee Programs, resulting in unclear and inconsistent pathways to permanent residency.
This is where nuance matters.
There are legitimate questions being asked nationally about immigration levels, housing availability, and system capacity. Those concerns must be taken seriously. At the same time, it is equally important to recognize that subregional labour needs differ significantly across the country. A policy approach that may be appropriate in one urban centre does not always align with the realities of other exportdriven regions like ours.
Southern Alberta is well positioned to continue growing as a manufacturing hub. We have reliable electricity, industrial land, and established export market access. What we increasingly lack is workforce certainty.
That raises an important question worth thoughtful discussion: Is our current immigration mix aligned with the workforce needs of key sectors like manufacturing? Other industries facing longterm labour shortages already benefit from sectorspecific pathways and programs. Some local employers and economic development organizations have suggested it may be worth exploring whether a similar approach could be considered for manufacturing, particularly when those jobs are highvalue, skilled, and central to regional economic stability.
Raising this question is not about advocating for unlimited immigration or dismissing the need for strong oversight and worker protections. It is about recognizing that successful immigration policy aligns labour supply with real economic need and provides clarity and fairness for workers, employers, and communities alike.
I want to thank Economic Development Lethbridge and the many local employers who continue to engage constructively on this issue and share their insights. Their work helps ensure that conversations about immigration are informed by evidence and grounded in lived experience.
If we are serious about growing our economy, supporting local jobs, and keeping southern Alberta competitive, then we need space for thoughtful, regionspecific discussions — not slogans or absolutes. That is the tone I hope we can maintain as this municipal, provincial and national conversation continues.
17-16
hmm, any examples of the 30$ an hour average wage jobs in our area (hopefully, your numbers do not include the bloated incomes of the ceo and upper management earners)? certainly one is not pertaining to those that manufacture burgers and fattening coffees for the drive through crowd. i have not driven extensively through our industrial area, but it is hard to see 30$ an hour average anywhere there…certainly not pepsi or frito lay.
where i do see a massive lean in immigrant employment is in places that pony all the way up to our gracious minimum wage – which seems to uphold the standard of working for poverty.
i am a big fan of immigration – the divine right of people to be able to move across our planet is essential for many reasons; the only concern to me is that people need to be cleared insofar that they are not violent offenders nor habitual criminals. canada has done poor job on that front for many decades through each of our two governing parties. both the libs and cons have too long used lax immigration policies simply as a means to cement bloc voting groups; neither seems to care whether they get their votes from good citizens or violent thugs, so long as they get to be the bagmen for big corp.
btw nathan – where is the petition for your recall? can you give us a hint?
Mr. Neudorf would have us believe that he wishes to have a “thoughtful” and “nuanced” discussion regarding immigration and the employment challenges faced by the manufacturing sector in the Lethbridge area.
However, in my reading, Mr. Neudorf’s thoughtfulness and nuance dissolves into a thinly veiled trope linking newcomers to housing shortages, strained infrastructure, and economic pressure.
Therefore, it is seriously unclear to me which “slogans and absolutes” Mr. Neudorf wishes to avoid.
Moreover, Mr. Neudorf’s expressed neoliberal approach to “growing the economy” echoes the conditions whereby immigration patterns arise, from either war torn or climate change ravaged areas on this planet.
As Dr. Lindsay McLaren, professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary reveals, “A recent report by well-being economist Mark Anielski and colleagues considers failure demand in Alberta, which is the cycle where the pursuit of economic growth causes harms to people and the planet, which in turn requires governments to spend money to try to fix those harms. The report identifies avoidable damages incurred through economic choices — guided by the current purpose and structure of the economy — in interrelated domains of paid work, housing, and the environment. It conservatively estimates the financial impact of these choices for Alberta at more than $380 billion, including societal costs of poverty and low-pay, low-quality, and insecure work; inadequate housing and homelessness; outstanding oil and gas sector reclamation; health impacts of air pollution; and weather-related disasters.”
“If we are serious”, as Mr. Neudorf opines, our political leaders best understand that in the relentless pursuit of “economic growth”, the Doomsday Clock is currently set at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to cataclysmic destruction.
This should be a wake up call for all.
https://cbr.cba.org/index.php/cbr/article/view/3754
https://www.parklandinstitute.ca/well_being_economy
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/