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 whom prospective employers fight over.
The federal government hopes to win his services with the help of a new campaign launched to solve an old problem: Unlike African Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans, Latinos are still underrepresented in the federal workforce, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
"It's something that's been an issue for decades," said office spokesman Ken Oliver-Mendez. "What's really new is we're using more media and broadening our approach toward recruitment. 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."
But unless this program succeeds where others like it have failed, the end result may be no more than a fractional gain: Despite the government's efforts, Latino representation in the federal workforce rose just two-tenths of a percentage point from 2005 to 2006.
Historically, minorities have found federal employment a road to opportunity. The proportions of African Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans working for the government all equal or exceed the corresponding percentages in the civilian workforce.
Latinos, on the other hand, make up 7.6% of the federal workforce, compared with 12.8% of the civilian labor force. But Latinos have made significant gains in federal internship programs at the agencies where they are most underrepresented. Because internships tend to increase the likelihood of a job offer, an increase in the number of Latino employees might be expected -- though it doesn't seem to be working that way.
Latinos held more than 20% of the internships at the Justice Department in 2006, but 8.8% of the full-time jobs. According to Office of Personnel Management statistics, similar discrepancies exist at NASA, the Agriculture Department and the Department of the Army.
Efforts are being made to improve those numbers. The Hispanic Assn. of Colleges and Universities, or HACU, and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs sponsor government internships. A recent survey of the HACU-sponsored interns showed that 80% of those who graduated after their internships were offered full-time federal jobs, and 38% accepted.
