Thread: In Pittsburgh, the welcome mat is out to immigrants

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05338/616612.stm

In Pittsburgh, the welcome mat is out to immigrants
Problem is, not enough people are coming
Sunday, December 04, 2005

By Dan Fitzpatrick, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pittsburgh, once a true melting pot, is now one of the least international big cities in America, and that could foreshadow more problems for an already slow local economy.

Only 3 percent, or 72,325, of the Pittsburgh-area population was foreign born as of 2004, one of the lowest percentages of any major U.S. city. From 2000 to 2004, the region added 11,039 international migrants -- a mere 0.5 percent increase, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

It was the lowest increase among the nation's top 25 metro areas, trailing many similar-sized regions: Denver added 62,765, Seattle added 72,152, Minneapolis added 49,455, and Cleveland added 16,361.

Even Cincinnati, which rivals Pittsburgh in the homogeneity department, added slightly more immigrants (11,836) from 2000 to 2004.

The reason Pittsburgh's immigration rate is so alarming to followers of the local economy is what it portends: slow growth.

As Pittsburgh's work force grows older and in need of replacement and as the region continues to lose population -- the seven-county area dropped another 1.1 percent during 2000-2004 -- economic development experts predict that an area unattractive to immigrants will have a hard time filling positions if the economy grows at even a marginal rate in the next 10 to 20 years. As of 2000, foreigners accounted for 2.7 percent of the Pittsburgh-area work force, a rate trailing all similar-sized cities.

Every year, about 3,000 people enter the labor pool in the Pittsburgh area -- not enough to keep pace with a 1 percent growth rate in jobs, abtout 10,000 jobs a year. One Duquesne University study, in fact, predicted a shortage of workers in the Pittsburgh area that could reach 125,000 by 2010 and 225,000 by 2020.

"At some point, you run out of more people who want to go into the labor force," said Jerry Paytas, director of Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz School Center for Economic Development. "We do need to bring people in."

The one bit of encouraging news is that Pittsburgh's foreign-born population is moving upward -- if only slightly -- for the first time in more than half a century.

After 1940, when the foreign-born population represented more than 12 percent of the region's residents, the percentage dropped decade after decade until hitting a low of 2.4 percent in 1990. By 2000, the number had inched up to 2.6 percent, the first increase in at least 50 years. The number moved up further to 3 percent in 2004.

Reflecting an uptick in the numbers, the region's top universities, medical centers and technology firms have done reasonably well attracting doctors, engineers and other well-educated workers from India, China, South America and elsewhere.

Disk drive maker Seagate Technology, for example, has employees from 25 countries working at its research center in the Strip District. There are reports of a growing Spanish-speaking enclave in Beechview and a thriving Indian community in parts of the South Hills. Last year PNC Financial Services Group began running local ads in Spanish, including a message that flashes to commuters along Route 19.

Despite all this, there was no across-the-board growth in Asians, Hispanics and other foreigners as there was in other big cities during the 1990s and the first several years of the 21st century. And Pittsburgh's slight foreign-born population increase during the '90s, from 2.4 to 2.6 percent, pales when compared with a city such as Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, where more than 40 percent of the population is foreign-born, or San Diego (more than 20 percent) or even Atlanta (10 percent).

"Pittsburgh is the white-ist large metro area in the nation," said Christopher Briem, of the University Center for Social and Urban Research at the University of Pittsburgh.

Foreigners tend to move to coastal areas where they have access to home countries and to places with established communities already in place. Immigration in the United States also tends to be concentrated in certain areas -- six states, including California and New York, are home to 68 percent of all foreign-born residents despite being home to only 40 percent of the nation's population. Nationally, more than half -- 51.7 percent -- of the foreign-born population is from Latin America.

In the Pittsburgh area, Latin Americans make up 8.8 percent of the foreign-born population. Much larger percentages belong to the Europeans, 47.5 percent, and Asians, 35.1 percent.

It should be noted, however, that the immigrants who do arrive in southwestern Pennsylvania are extremely well educated, with 58 percent having a bachelor's degree or higher -- the highest proportion of any major metro area in the nation, according to Mr. Briem. That means that Pittsburgh is probably not getting many "undocumented," or illegal, immigrants, who typically fill service jobs in faster-growing parts of the country and form an underground economy of sorts.

The number of illegal migrants to southwestern Pennsylvania is hard to quantify, experts say. Mr. Briem's guess, though, is that the number is very, very low, reflecting the low rate of legal immigration. As to whether that could change, Mr. Briem said, "The numbers just can't go down any farther than where they have been in the last couple of decades. You can only go up from zero."

Several local organizations are doing their best to increase the flow of foreigners, believing that more immigrants could fill labor shortages in various trades, including nursing and manufacturing, while also making Pittsburgh a more vibrant, cosmopolitan city and increasing its political clout.

"We need people," said Andy Pugh, of the Welcome Center for Immigrants & Internationals, in Squirrel Hill, a group that helps foreigners find housing, schools and health care.

Added Schuyler Foerster, president of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh: "if we want to grow the economy we need to increase our work force. Other cities have done it with a substantial influx of immigrants. That's empirical."

While native-born Americans need to be trained for highly skilled jobs, too, immigrants are a part of the labor pool "we shouldn't ignore," said Barry Maciak, executive director of Duquesne University's Institute for Economic Transformation.

Many people in Pittsburgh are of Slavic descent. There is a large group of Slavs in varius countries interested in moving to the United States. If the citizens of Pittsburgh were to act to encourage new immigrants there is no reason for them to favor the people with the strongest ethnic lobby Latinos instead of their own third and fourth cousins.