'Sticky situation:' Hispanic workforce creates quagmire and opportunity

By Keren Rivas / TImes-News
August 27, 2007 5:03 PM

To read other stories in our series click here.When it comes to measuring the impact Hispanic immigrants have had in the workforce, opinions vary.

While some say they are creating more jobs and adding to the state’s economic output others argue that they are lowering wage levels.

A 2006 report by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported that between 1995 and 2005 Hispanics accounted for 35.1 percent of the state’s overall workforce increase, with the construction industry absorbing most of the increase.

In those 10 years the Hispanic workforce increased by 241,602, with workers filling one in three jobs created in the state.

In Alamance County, there were 4,265 Hispanics workers in 2000, according to census figures. Though there are no more current estimates for the number of Hispanics in the workforce, it is apparent that the number has grown since then.

Donna Clubb, one of the owners of GCB Staffing in Burlington, said in June that about 70 percent of the nearly 700 workers currently registered with her temporary job agency are Hispanic.

In contrast, when she and her partners took over the agency in 1996, then called Gate City, she only had three Hispanic workers.

“The Hispanic population has just expanded exponentially,â€