| Brief purpose of the study: | The U.S. swine industry has heavily relied to meet their labor needs on North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) visa program, known as TN-visa. According to the US Department of State, in 2022, 33,000 TN visas were issued for the livestock industries defined as beef, dairy, and swine operations.
Although TN-visa workers have been extremely important in supporting the shortage of workforce in the US swine farms, the high labor turnover of the U.S. swine industry also includes workers on this category. One of the main reasons for this turnover is that the TN employee has been a largely ignored category as it relates to their cultural and professional background, academic history, goals, and aspirations limiting the success of their employer to retaining them. Therefore, the first objective of this project is to anonymously survey TN-visa workers in 6 top pork producing states to capture cultural and professional backgrounds, academic history of this population and provide the results to farm owners, production managers, and human resource professionals to ensure that their skills and experience are identified for future opportunities within the swine systems across the country. The second objective is to identify sow caretaker theme(s) as to what makes their job more fulfilling, identify the factor(s) that could lead them to leave the farm for other opportunities and, to identify tool(s) and incentive(s) that would increase morale and retention on swine farms. |
| Study contact for more information: | Principal Investigator and Title: Magdiel Lopez Soriano (Field Livestock Specialist – Swine)
Institution: University of Missouri
Address: 6235 W Cunningham Drive
6235 W Cunningham Drive, Columbia, Missouri, 65202
Phone: (573) 445-8375
Email: mlopezsoriano@missouri.edu |
