By Laura Smith – University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was the featured speaker at the sixth annual Latina Luncheon Series in Washington, D.C. on Friday. Solis discussed challenges faced by Latinos throughout the country, such as jobs.

Green jobs, said Solis, are going to be the key to putting minorities, including Latinos, African-Americans, American Indians, women, farm-workers and lower-class Whites to work.

Solis said that millions of dollars in grants from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, passed earlier this year, are helping working families get back on their feet and find jobs in green industries.

“Through the Recovery Act and other investments, $220 million was made available to help dislocated workers transition into new high-growth sectors like allied health and information technology,” said Solis. $114 million has been awarded to community groups nationwide to educate and train young people, she added.

“By providing the job training that will revamp blue-collar jobs into secure 21st century green-collar jobs, we are paving a pathway out of poverty, strengthening urban and rural communities and protecting the health of our citizens and planet,” boasted Solis.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner, Keith Hall, says that minorities and the uneducated continue to suffer the most job losses, a trend that parallels unemployment statistics prior to the recession. “The trend is pretty much the same,” Hall says. “When the overall unemployment rate goes up, it goes up by more for the minorities.” (0:18)

 

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