Hispanic workers adjust to shift in sector by learning new skills

By Devona Walker

Published: June 7, 2008

As some parts of the country reel from plummeting home values and a construction slump, many Hispanic workers have been forced to find other kinds of jobs — even in Oklahoma, where a more muted slowdown still means less work.

"I use to work for an independent contractor who did all residential. He had to completely switch things around,” said Darrel John, a 21-year-old roofer from Oklahoma City. "That's why I came here.”

John, Terry Ladd, 47, Chris Sanchez, 31, and Mario Silvas, 41, are all now commercial roofers. For them, the key to keeping the bills paid has been skill versatility — from roof work to framing to tile work — whatever the job entails.

"We get nothing up there but the straight up sun and the heat. It's like a microwave box. But it's worth it, it pays you well, keeps you in shape,” Sanchez said. "We keep busy because we do it all.”

"I don't know what employers have been up to, but the evidence shows that there is a disproportionate number of undocumented working in the construction sector,” said Rakesh Kochhar, the report's author and associate director for research with the Pew Hispanic Center. "If you consider that, in this climate of economic slowdown, along with increased enforcement, they are being hardest hit.”

Other factors including the transient nature of foreign-born immigrants and lower union membership also help explain that as budgets have gotten tighter, those workers have been the first to be let go, Kochhar said.

In 2006, Hispanic workers were near equity with non-Hispanic workers. So far, in 2008, it's at 6.5 percent compared with 4.7 percent for non-Hispanic workers.

This spike in unemployment has hit immigrants exceptionally hard, according to the report. Historically, foreign-born Hispanics have always had lower unemployment rates than native-born Hispanics. This year, for the first time since 2003, the unemployment rate for foreign-born Hispanics was 7.5 percent. Foreign-born Hispanics makes up 52.5 percent of working-age Hispanics. Hispanics account for 14.2 percent of the U.S. labor force.

"They are here, as they say, to work. Some come here with a job in hand,” Kochhar said, adding the latest labor trends indicate a dramatic reversal for Hispanic immigrants.

Even as home building stumbled in 2006, Hispanics found nearly 300,000 new construction jobs, according to the report.

But in 2007, about 221,000 foreign-born Hispanic workers left the construction sector. More than 150,000 had migrated to the U.S. from Mexico.

"We definitely had to change our mindset to make sure we had the systems in place to work with Hispanic homebuyers,” said Steve Shoemaker, director of marketing for Oklahoma City-based Ideal Homes. "We also have started allocating more and more of our marketing dollars to the Hispanic part of the community.

"But I can't speak to our tradesmen and contractors and suppliers, and what they are feeling. Short of providing legal documentation and insurance verification, they operate as their own business,” he added.

The Oklahoma economy has been insulated from some of the national downturn by the energy and natural gas markets. It also never experienced superficial run-ups in housing prices. Some speculate the local market might not need correcting anytime soon. But Shoemaker said there has been some fallout.

"We have a lot of companies here in Oklahoma that do business in other states, and they are getting hit hard. But the ace up our sleeve is the oil and gas sector,” Shoemaker said, adding that on the frontlines of the construction sector the distress is evident.

"Even though we are in Oklahoma City, people do not live in a bubble. I can tell you with a fair amount of certainty one of the trickle down effects has been consumer confidence. ... Consumers have this, ‘wait and see mentality' because they hear about what is happening in other markets.”

Mike Means, president of the Oklahoma State Home Builders Association, echoed those sentiments, but he also said there is still plenty of construction work and that Hispanic workers continue to remain as a staple of that labor sector.

"It's not like if you throw a house out there, it's going to sell tomorrow,” Means said.

Especially in high-end new housing, there are some products that have been on the market for about six months, Means said.

"But at least we still have products being built and products being sold. We're still building and selling,” he said. "Our problem continues to be finding workers. And the Hispanics are the ones willing to work.”

For the commercial roofing crew, who on a recent afternoon were finishing up a job at the Hunzicker Brothers electrical distributor company on North Virginia Avenue, work — regardless of financial projects and unemployment numbers — continues to come in.

He has gotten used to being the minority on the job.

"The Mexicans are the only ones that can stay up there,” Ladd said, talking about hot commercial rooftops, a working environment that can add about 40 degrees to a 100 degree day.

"Besides we all turn brown after a while up there,” he added.

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