Drive to Diversify

Jack Arias is a rare breed at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

A naturalized U.S. citizen from Peru, Arias works in Dallas as an environmental scientist with the EPA’s Region 6 offices, which encompass Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.

He is among only 89 Hispanic employees in Region 6, representing about 9 percent of the EPA labor force in the area. That’s way below the region’s demographics for Hispanics, who account for 46 percent of the population in New Mexico and 37 percent in Texas.

“We’re very underrepresented in Region 6,” Arias said. “I’ve hardly seen any Hispanics being hired in the last two years.”

To help reverse those trends, Arias became the Region 6 Hispanic employment program manager in May. He was part of an 11-member team from Region 6 that attended the League of United Latin American Citizens job fair in Albuquerque, where LULAC held its annual conference from July 12 to 17.

“We’re here because we want to hire more Hispanics,” Arias said. “There’s a huge effort under way in the EPA and other federal agencies to become more diverse.”

A lot of work needs to be done.

“Corporations are beginning to recognize the importance of the Latino market, but it’s taken a long time, and there’s still a long way to go,” said LULAC executive director Brent Wilkes. “There is also still very little diversity in government agencies and programs, and few, if any, Latinos in decisionmaking positions.”

Employment and career advancement remain extremely limited for Latinos in federal agencies and in much of the private sector.

Hispanics currently account for more than 15 percent of the U.S. population. But they represent 7.8 percent of the federal-government workforce and 3.6 percent of individuals at federal senior pay levels, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

On the corporate front, a survey last December of Fortune 100 companies by the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility found that, on average, Hispanics earned $12,000 less annually for full-time positions than non-Hispanics. Dollars allocated for procurement from Hispanic firms represented, on average, 2 percent of total spending goals by corporations, and Hispanics held less than 5 percent of executive and director positions at the companies surveyed.

For more on the efforts to bring diversity to federal agencies and corporate America, click for the full story from the New Mexico Business Weekly (subscription required).

---

Kevin Robinson-Avila writes for New Mexico Business Weekly.