For Maine's business owners, question looms: Where are future workers?
| Biddeford, Maine
As the owner of a specialty textile firm, Claudia Raessler thinks a lot about wages and workforce development.
Since opening in 2012 in an 18,000-square-foot site in Biddeford, Maine, the Saco River Dyehouse has grown to a staff of 16 who dye wool and natural fibers for customers who want an organic, made-in-USA product.
Ms. Raessler, a lawyer-turned-entrepreneur, supports the campaign for a higher state minimum wage. It won鈥檛 affect her business too much, since most workers earn more. But she has another question: Who are Maine鈥檚 future workers? The state is the oldest by median age, and its workforce is shrinking as baby boomers retire and young people move away.
In the dye house, the answer is clear. Among the 16 staff members who dye, skein, pack, and ship the commissioned yarn, five nationalities are represented. The dyeing manager is from Pakistan, and two of her workers are a Chinese couple who moved to Maine in 2011. The dye room 鈥� a hot, steamy place 鈥� is staffed by Iraqis. This diversity is mirrored in Portland鈥檚 schools, where 42 percent of students are nonwhite.
Raessler says she wants her immigrant workers to advance and hopes to recruit more as the firm expands. (It is moving into a larger site in an industrial park this summer.) The challenge in promoting from within, she says, is that her employees may have professional certifications from their home country, but some struggle to communicate in English.
鈥淭he hard part isn鈥檛 getting them in the door. It鈥檚 getting them to a livable wage,鈥� she says.
Evan Guo, one half of the Chinese couple, says he likes his job but points out that he hasn鈥檛 had a raise in a year and a half. Life is expensive in America, he says. He and his wife, a former accountant, make more than $14 an hour each, but it鈥檚 swallowed up by rent, child care, and car lease payments.
鈥淢oney comes in," he says. "And it goes out.鈥澛� 聽
