Workplace -- Poverty Among Minority Children May Hurt State Work Force In Future

Imagine, if you can, it is the year 2010.

Washington state's economy is running on a high-tech industry, a hybrid form of manufacturing and a complex import-export operation throughout the Pacific Rim.

It requires a pool of highly skilled, well-educated workers.

But employers are baffled. They can't seem to find enough qualified workers to fill open slots vacated by retiring employees. Neither can they find qualified workers to fill new job slots.

The state's leadership is confused - and concerned - particularly since there had been studies decades earlier that pointed to large numbers of minorities as the workers of the future.

What went wrong?

Flashback to the year 1992.

Enter reality.

According to 1990 census data, about one of every three minority children - between the ages of birth and 4 years - live in poverty.

Fact: Among Native-American children, between the ages of birth and 4, 45.3 percent live in poverty.

Fact: In the same age category, 35.4 percent of African-American children, 37.6 percent of Latino children, 21.5 percent of Asian-American and Pacific-Islander children and 42.9 percent of children listed in the "other" category live in poverty.

Many of these children have been forecast as potential workers of Washington state - the workers of 2010 and beyond.

But some Washington demographers and social planners believe the high poverty rates among minority children are a major obstacle to the completion of those labor-force projections.

Instead, they suspect many of the state's poorest minority residents in 2010 will experience the same reality their ethnic counterparts experience today: severe joblessness and poverty.

"Our information shows that the work force is going to be increasingly ethnically and racially diverse," said Bryan Wilson, executive policy assistant for Gov. Booth Gardner. "We show that in Washington 40 percent of the net increase of people in the work force will be nonwhite.

"So certainly the need to reach out and make sure all sectors of our community are well prepared to enter the work force is absolutely crucial."

Wilson and other social analysts and planners believe increased collaboration between the social-service sector and early-education specialists could reduce the impact poverty will have on impoverished children's ability to learn, and thus take advantage of educational and employment opportunities in the future.

But those steps alone - expanding the Head Start program and developing educational programs geared toward children of low-income parents - will not be enough, Wilson said.

"The problems we must address start before students enter school. Before we can educate these kids, we need to do something about the situation they're in. We need to do something about hunger and safety and clothing."

Irv Lefberg, senior policy coordinator for Washington state's Office of Financial Management, said the projected increase of minority participation in the work force "raises questions" about the future of Washington's business and industry.

"If so many of the state's minority children live in poverty, and so many of them are not receiving the educational opportunities they need, then how will that affect the productivity of Washington's future labor force?" Lefberg asked.

Both Lefberg and Wilson believe the state's business leaders need to help develop solutions.

"It's in the interest of everyone to do this because our economy depends on it," Wilson said. "We forecast a shortage in the labor force developing toward the end of this century as the baby-boom generation gets older and older.

"And employers cannot afford to leave anyone out. If they do they'll only be hurting themselves because they won't find enough qualified employees to meet their demands."

If 1990 poverty data is an indicator of the future of King County's ethnic development, then the labor demand in 2010 and beyond grows dim.

Fact: In King County, 42.2 percent of Native-American children between the ages of birth to 4, live in poverty, compared with 7 percent of white children.

Fact: In the same age category, 35.7 percent of African-American children, 31.2 of children listed in the other category, 22.3 percent of Latino children and 18.2 percent of Asian-American and Pacific-Islander children live in poverty.

That's why Wilson points to recent state labor market projections as evidence that political, social and business leaders need to start preparing the state's potential work force for the future.

In 1990, for example, 8.4 percent of Washington's workers were minorities. By the year 2010 that number will increase to roughly 20 percent.

Jean Soliz, assistant secretary for Children, Youth and Families, a branch of the Department of Social and Health Services, has mixed emotions about those projections.

"The good news is that the census data tells us that business is going to need a more diverse labor force," Soliz said. "Just the pure demographics will lead to the fact that businesses cannot dismiss segments of the population.

"But I think," she said, "that the question will be how much business will contribute in solving some of the problems facing this future labor force."