SW Fla. building industry's slowdown driving out workers

By Fernando Zapata
Originally posted on March 26, 2007

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 60358/1075

Benito Mendoza came to Southwest Florida seeking the same thing as other Hispanic immigrants: work.

Two years after he arrived in Bonita Springs, Mendoza, 47, is thinking about becoming an immigrant again — this time by leaving Southwest Florida.

The reason? He can't find work.

"There is no construction. Work is down 50 percent," said Mendoza, who was born in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. "I used to be a carpenter, but where I worked, more than 20 laborers were kicked out."

Hispanics are the fastest-growing minority group in Lee County. According to the U.S. Census, 14.5 percent of the total population was of Hispanic origin in 2005, up from 9.5 percent in 2000.

But the trend seems to be slowing as workers such as Mendoza leave because of the slowing pace in the construction industry — one of the main job sources for Hispanic immigrants.

In January, 395 construction permits were issued for single-family homes, a 35.3 percent increase from the 292 requested in December 2006, according to the Lee County Department of Community Development.

Despite that rise, the number of permits issued was 37.5 percent lower than the 632 permits requested in January 2006.

Meanwhile, unemployment in Lee County was 3.3 percent in January, up from 2.7 percent in December 2006, according to Florida jobless figures.

Ripple effects

For builders and contractors, the situation is clear: Work is down, which has caused a decrease in jobs.

"Right now, there is only about 15 percent or 20 percent of the construction activity there used to be in November 2006," said Rafael Robles, president of Rafo Corporation, a Fort Myers-based building contractor.

Big construction companies have been hit the hardest, he said.

"They used to build 15 to 20 houses a month. Now they only build two or three," he said.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, a branch of the Washington-based think tank the Pew Research Center, "no other industry has been as vital to the employment of foreign-born workers — and Latinos in particular — as construction."

Nationwide, the proportion of Hispanic workers in the construction industry increased from 11 percent to 15 percent between 2005 and 2006, according to a September 2006 Pew Hispanic Center report.

According to the Pew Center, the South is home of 1.4 million of Hispanic construction workers, the most of any region.

"Any slowdown could have a serious impact on overall Hispanic employment," the report stated.

Feeling slowdown

Local businesses that cater to Hispanics are feeling the slowdown, too.

Alfredo Lopez, who owns Bonita Bakery on Old U.S. 41 Road in Bonita Springs, said his sales are down 15 percent since October. But "we can still live with that. After all, ours is a basic-need business," he said.

Lopez, 63, doesn't the trend is being caused by a lack of construction jobs.

"There is still construction. Maybe not of houses, but buildings and shopping centers are still being built," he said.

He said stricter federal regulations have scared businesses, who "now prefer to fire people before being fined or go to jail" for hiring undocumented immigrants.

Lopez said he has seen an increase in the sale of bus tickets headed to other parts of the United States and Mexico.

"People are going North, to New York, Chicago, the Carolinas, ... anywhere work is," he said. "But there are some who buy tickets to Mexico. Those never come back."

Freddie Ramiro, 22, was one of the passengers who bought a bus ticket at Bonita Bakery.

"I'm off to Delaware," the unemployed carpenter from Guatemala said. "There is work there."

So believes Rubiel Calderon, 17, an immigrant from Chiapas, Mexico, who bought a bus ticket to Ohio.

"There is more work there than here. There are more companies," he said. "And less heat."

The Rev. Victor Caviedes, parochial vicar of the Mission of Jesus Obrero and Mission San Jose Catholic churches in Fort Myers, whose parishioners are mostly Hispanic, noticed the same labor slowdown a couple of months ago.

"This has never happened before here," he said. "Laborers gather early in the morning in certain areas to get construction work, like the corner of Ortiz and Tice Avenues. By 10 a.m. only about 5 percent of them remained there, but now I see that around 30 or 40 percent get no work."

Caviedes has been distributing free bags of canned food to people in need for several years, especially for families with children. "Now I see less people coming, because they are gone," he said.

He agreed with Lopez that one of the reasons for the labor shortage among Hispanics is because of stricter document screenings by employers.

"More companies are checking work papers, so they fire Hispanic workers, especially Guatemalans and Mexicans," he said. "They are replacing them with Puerto Ricans and Cubans."

Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, and Cubans generally are granted permanent status to stay in the country.

Gaspar Mendez, 48, an unemployed construction worker who rides his bicycle around downtown Bonita, said he has also thought about leaving.

"Things are so hard," he said.