When Sigco, a Westbrook metal and glass fabricating company, learned that it could find the workers it needed to grow in southern Maines immigrant communities, it had to develop its own pipeline to steer refugees, asylum seekers and other new Americans to its plant.
Cindy Caplice, the companys human resources manager, said she developed contacts in Portlands adult education system, where many of the immigrants were taking English classes. She spoke to students and teachers and learned insights that made the hiring process easier, from ascertaining the level of English proficiency of the immigrants many of them from Africa and Vietnam to knowing that most immigrants would need to learn to convert centimeters to inches to work in her shop.
ATTRACTING, INTEGRATING IMMIGRANTS
Caplices initiatives will need to be replicated by other businesses to address Maines increasingly tight labor pool, according to a report released Thursday by the Maine Development Foundation and the Maine State Chamber of Commerce. Earlier this year, Coastal Enterprises Inc. also issued a report on the importance of recruiting immigrants, and in August, a coalition of business and economic development leaders backed immigration reform as a way to address workforce shortages.
The MDF/chamber report said the states aging population is creating a smaller workforce that already is restricting economic growth by making it hard for employers to fill vacant jobs. The two groups called for setting a statewide goal to attract more immigrants to Maine, and expanding efforts to help them integrate into society and the workplace.
Immigrants are only a small fraction of Maines population: 3.5 percent of Mainers are foreign-born, according to a U.S. Census Bureau survey cited in the report, while 13.1 percent of the U.S. population is foreign-born.
Dana Connors, president of the Maine state chamber, said the impact of immigrants on the economy will grow dramatically. He said 83 percent of the growth in the U.S. workforce between 2000 and 2050 will be immigrants and their children.
We need to make sure that we are tapping into this same pool of talent, he said at a news conference in Augusta.
Caplice said the lack of an established or obvious way to find immigrant workers shouldnt preclude employers from making the effort. The report backs up that assertion.
The states demographics an aging population where thousands are retiring every year, without an influx of new workers to replace them create a ripple effect of negatives for the broader economy, the report said, leading to lower tax revenue, greater demands on services, smaller school populations, and a smaller, less dynamic workforce.
