Immigrants make up bulk of South Bend-Elkhart region's recent population growth, data shows

Funded by a Gateways for Growth grant, local organizations updated a 2017 immigration study to gather new figures for 2014 to 2019. Focused on St. Joseph, Elkhart and Marshall counties, some of the major takeaways from the new report shared at a Thursday night event are:

• • In St. Joseph County, 87.2% of population growth from 2014 to 2019 was due to immigration. The figure was 19.1% for Marshall County and 15.1% for Elkhart County.
• • While 36,000 immigrants made up 6.9% of the region's total population in 2019, they comprised 9% of the employed population and 12.9% of manufacturing workers, 9.8% of education workers, and 9.2% of workers in science, technology, engineering and math. They helped to preserve or create 1,700 local manufacturing jobs that otherwise would have been moved elsewhere or eliminated by 2019.
• • In 2019, immigrant households in the region earned about $1 billion and contributed $3.8 million or 9% of the area's gross domestic product. They held $786.3 million or 7.6% of the region's spending power that year.