08/13/08

Most of the growth in the state's Hispanic population took place in southern Idaho last year.

Many counties throughout the state are seeing an increase in their Hispanic population. In fact the state of Idaho’s Hispanic population grew by more than 8,000 from 2006 to 2007, with most of that growth coming from the eight counties in south central Idaho.

Jan Roeser with the Idaho Department of Labor says it has a lot to do with the type of work offered in our state.

Roeser says, "A lot of that has to do with the type of jobs we have they type of industries that are prevalent and those include agriculture, construction, service industries those are the main ones."

Officials say the most growth occurred in the Minidoka and Cassia County area with almost 30 percent in Minidoka and more than 20 percent in Cassia County.

But Roeser says the increase can cause some challenges. "This does have an affect on the schools. They do have to have some English as a second language for some of the students that do come from parents that don't speak English."

Another area where officials saw a lot of growth was in Blaine County. They say that's mostly because of higher paying construction and landscaping jobs.

However Roeser says they have seen a tightening in the labor force overall. “We've seen a little bit of a tightening in the labor market with the Hispanic population because we did see some immigration issues last fall and that did scare away some of the individuals."

And even though there are ups and downs Roeser says the growth benefits our area by helping to fuel the local economy.

"They are a vital park of our economy in south central Idaho. They spend their money here and they send some back to Mexico but as a whole they have a very good percentage of buying power."