Portland: New office seeks to connect immigrants with employers
The City of Portland is considering opening a new office aimed at helping immigrants, minorities and other economically hard-pressed residents connect with businesses and service providers, Maine Public reported.
The mission of the Office of Economic Opportunity, as it’s currently called, would be to identify business workforce needs and worker needs, and coordinate those with community programs to provide training, language education and mentoring.
Pending City Council approval, the new office could be operational in January.
Earlier this year, “Maine's Labor Shortage: New Mainers and Diversity,” a new report from the Maine State Chamber of Commerce and the Maine Development Foundation, identified immigrants as key to addressing Maine's workforce woes.
Maine's workforce is projected to decline as employees retire, with too few young workers available to replace them.
Portland is home to a cornucopia of multiculturalism, with business purveyors from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere as immigrants or refugees.
"Maine needs to understand that these immigrants are going to save the economic vitality of the state," Sally Sutton, program director of Portland Adult Education's New Mainers Resource Center, told Mainebiz earlier this year, adding, "Our death rate is higher than our birth rate. These people are younger, they have skills and they have children. They are exactly what Maine needs to solve its demographic challenges, and the sooner our politicians recognize this, the faster we'll be able to work towards solving the state's economic needs."
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Immigrants key 'to what Maine needs to solve its demographic challenges
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