Wanted: Hispanics In Government

Published: Aug 28, 2007

WASHINGTON - At 20, Rudy Rodas is looking at a bright future. The bilingual business major, who expects to graduate with honors from George Washington University next May, is the kind of candidate that prospective employers fight over.

The federal government hopes to win the battle for his services with the help of a new campaign launched to solve an old problem: Hispanics are the only ethnic minority still underrepresented in the federal work force, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

"It's something that's been an issue for decades. What's really new is, we're using more media and broadening our approach toward recruitment," office spokesman Ken Oliver-Mendez said. "We've been actively going to Hispanic media outlets. We've been working with nonprofits trying to let the Hispanic population know about the federal government as an employer."

Blacks, Asian-Americans and American Indians working for the government all equal or exceed their percentages in the civilian work force.

Hispanics, on the other hand, make up 12.8 percent of the civilian labor force but just 7.6 percent of the federal work force. The disparity exists even though Hispanics have made significant gains in federal internship programs at the agencies where they are most underrepresented in the work force. Hispanics held more than 20 percent of the internships at the Justice Department in 2006 but only 8.8 percent of the full-time jobs. According to Office of Personnel Management statistics, similar discrepancies exist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Agriculture Department and the Department of the Army.