The flow of immigrants into the Pembina Valley region remained fairly strong during 2017.

Regional Connections, the immigrant services organization based in Winkler has worked with about 800 new immigrants in the Winkler, Morden, and Altona areas over the past 12 months, according to executive director Laurie Sawatzky.

The majority of newcomers are from Kazakhstan, followed by Ukraine, Philippines, Russia, India, and Germany.

"Over the duration of the settlement services program here we are now up to 131 different countries represented in our region," said Sawatzky.

It appears the newcomers are establishing their new homes in Winkler and Morden for the most part, but also into the smaller communities surrounding those two cities such as Reinfeld, Schazenfeld, and Plum Coulee.

"Altona continues to receive new people, but one of the interesting things we're seeing is people from Winnipeg or Brandon or maybe other provinces who are moving into the Pembina Valley as part of a secondary migration because they have family here or they have a job connection."

According to Sawatzky, about 55 percent of the people that Regional Connections has dealt with in 2017 were in the 25-44 age category.

"80 percent of the people moving here are classified as economic immigrants, so they are moving here as skilled workers."

While there has been a lot of media attention on refugees coming to the Pembina Valley, they make up just over 8 percent of the people coming here.

"So, we see that economic immigrants continue to make up the largest number of people making our region home, Sawatzky said."