Bridging the Talent Gap: Gordie Howe Bridge Creates Big Opportunities for Local, International Workers

A version of this article was originally featured in SEMCOG’s Economic Development special edition magazine: What’s Our Edge?. Let us know if you would like to request hard copies. Southeast Michigan’s success depends on the unique strengths of its communities, businesses, and educational institutions. Regional cooperation, data-driven strategies, and a skilled workforce are key to driving growth. The Gordie Howe International Bridge, access to water, and education play vital roles in shaping the region’s future. By aligning these assets, the region can achieve greater prosperity, guided by the Economic Development Council’s new strategy.

The scope and impact of the Gordie Howe Bridge are so massive, so historic, that they are challenging to put into context:

• The opening of a nonmotorized path for people who walk and bike will enhance access for all and create new tourism opportunities along both sides of the region’s iconic riverfront, but it is brand-new and no one really knows yet how popular it will be.
• Redundancy may not be the flashiest of the bridge’s selling points, but the additional span will create more options for travelers and help to alleviate bottlenecks in the supply chain – increasing confidence and comfort for all.
• The post-Gordie economic landscape will feature binational economic benefits based on these factors and more (such as improved traffic flow), though they really began with the start of construction in 2018.

How much talent is needed to safely and efficiently build a 722-foot tall, 1.5-mile bridge across the Detroit River, in coordination with two countries and several existing communities and infrastructure systems? A lot. It takes a lot of talent.

Construction of the Gordie Howe Bridge

It takes many people with many sets of skills to accomplish something like this. Since the Gordie’s shovels-in-the-ground day on October 5, 2018, more than 11,000 workers have been hired and more than 12 million hours of work have been logged on-site. Thanks to extensive community outreach and involvement, over 42% of the project team is local to Southeast Michigan or the area around Windsor, Ontario. This means that for these 4,600+ local job opportunities to be created, another 6,300+ had to be filled as well.

According to Windsor’s AM 800 cklw, one of these jobs has been filled by Manuel Bello, a field engineer for the deck, originally from Venezuela. “It’s a very big project, so there’s a lot of moving parts in terms of design, coordinating with subcontractors and vendors. So many things that change day to day, and there’s a tight schedule that we need to meet,” Bello said.

Bello is one example of the key role immigrants play in our region’s economy. Southeast Michigan’s population forecast indicates that it will be impossible for the region to realize its best-case economic scenario without a significant influx of talent across high-demand jobs such as healthcare, financial services, and various kinds of engineering. Much of this talent will come from within our region – by tapping into underutilized parts of our workforce and keeping local graduates of our colleges, universities, apprenticeship programs, etc. in the region – but much of it will also need to come from international immigration.

The Gordie Howe Bridge | Detroit and Windsor

“It’s a very big project, so there’s a lot of moving parts in terms of design, coordinating with subcontractors and vendors. So many things that change day to day, and there’s a tight schedule that we need to meet.” -Manuel Bello | Field Engineer

Detroit’s booming auto industry of the 20th Century relied heavily on the labor of immigrants. According to a 2014 Crain’s Detroit Business article, “Foreign-born workers and their families helped swell Detroit’s population to nearly 2 million people at its 1950 peak.”

Immigrants help to build cars, roads, office buildings, and homes across Southeast Michigan. They also help to build the unique blend of cultures that exists here and no place else. The legacy of manufacturing in Southeast Michigan has created an expectation that things that are built here will work well and last a long time, and the region’s broad collection of cultures has helped to sew innovation and uphold that standard.

Immigrants: Getting Jobs Done

• In 2023, foreign-born workers were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in service occupations; natural resources, construction, and maintenance operations; and in production, transportation, and material moving operations. Foreign-born workers were less likely than native-born workers to be employed in management, professional, and related occupations and in sales and office occupations.*
• The median usual weekly earnings of foreign-born full-time wage and salary workers were $987 in 2023, compared with $1,140 for their native-born counterparts. (Difference in earnings reflect a variety of factors, including variations in the distributions of foreign-born and native-born workers by educational attainment, occupation, industry, and geographic region.)*
• By region, the foreign-born made up a larger share of the labor force in the West (23.9%) and in the Northeast (22.6%) in 2023 than for the nation as a whole (18.6%). The foreign-born made up a smaller share of the labor force than for the nation as a whole in the South (18.1%) and the Midwest (10.1%).*

What the Data Says

Highlights from “Contributions of New Americans in Michigan” **

• 6.9% – Immigrant share of the Michigan population in 2022
• 9.9% – Immigrant contribution to the State’s gross domestic product (GDP)
• 57% – Population growth in Michigan from 2012 – 2022 attributable to immigrants moving to the state
• 24.1% – Increased likeliness of immigrants to be of working age compared to their native-born counterparts
• 7.8% – Immigrants in Michigan who are registered nurses, the top in-demand job in the state

• 28.2% – Michigan’s software developers who are immigrants
• 24.3% – Michigan’s mechanical engineers who are immigrants
• 12.9% – Michigan’s industrial engineers who are immigrants

*Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

** Source: American Immigration Council; Michigan Global Talent Initiative

A Deeper Talent Pool Springs Unexpected Benefits

Talent is the lifeblood of a thriving economy, and every person represents a collection of unique talents, experiences, and potential contributions to our shared economic success. Highly skilled laborers and innovators from other parts of the country and globe have always contributed to the success of our region.

Ford Motor Company – An Immigrant Story?

William Ford emigrated to the United States in 1847 at the age of 20 and began farming in Wayne County. Years later, his wife Mary gave birth to their son Henry. Just like that, Southeast Michigan had become home to a historic innovator and major contributor to the economic success of Southeast Michigan and the United States for generations to come. By welcoming William Ford and his growing family to the region in 1847, Southeast Michigan had added talent that would help to meet the immediate needs of the present (agriculture) along with the needs of the future (machine-based manufacturing).

Ford Field, Detroit

Building a Bridge to the Future

The sustained contributions of immigrants (and their descendants) remain essential to Southeast Michigan’s economy now and in the future. In SEMCOG’s Economic and Demographic Outlook for Southeast Michigan through 2050, an alternative regional forecast scenario was analyzed in which international migration is reduced by about 24%, to 16,970 per year in Michigan and 10,877 per year in Southeast Michigan.

Under this outlook scenario, “The reduction in international migration results in fewer jobs in our community as the decline in the labor force results in an increase in relative wages. Southeast Michigan loses 466 jobs relative to the baseline forecast in 2024. Job losses increase over time, reaching a total of 4,585 by 2050.” These figures reflect only a hypothetical reduction of expected immigration to Michigan. Alternatively, a reduction in immigration across the whole United States would result in even greater job losses in our region.

The 2025-2026 SEMCOG Legislative Policy Platform recognizes the value immigrants add along with the essential role they will play in our region’s ability to see population growth in coming decades:

• Support policies that facilitate legal immigration to support economic development and help meet the region’s workforce needs.

Strategies to support Southeast Michigan’s economy through legal immigration may include:

• Programs to prioritize immigrant pathways for individuals who possess highly in-demand skills
• Pathways for foreign students to both obtain STEM degrees in Michigan and remain here to fill in-demand jobs
• Public-private partnerships to identify opportunities for welcoming, training, and retaining essential immigrant workforce populations
• Connection and collaboration with community-based organizations already supporting immigrant communities through ESL, education, and other support services