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This will come in handy when I'm shopping for drywall. |
Posted on 02/16/2005 12:13:58 PM PST by MisterRepublican
Home Depot wants to put more Hispanics in orange aprons through a hiring partnership it will unveil today.
The Atlanta-based chain plans to work with several Hispanic groups to boost both hiring and its appeal to a market segment whose buying power reached $750 billion last year.
Hispanic purchasing power will reach an estimated $1 trillion by 2008, the Hispanic Association of Corporate Responsibility says.
Hispanics are poised to be the next generation of home buyers, said Jeffrey Humphreys, a University of Georgia economist.
"Home Depot's efforts will pay big dividends in the future" as the retailer fights with Lowe's and smaller rivals to capture that business, Humphreys said.
The National Council of La Reza, the ASPIRA Association, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, and SER-Jobs for Progress will help Home Depot attract and recruit full- and part-time workers across the country. Daniel Borges, an eight-year Home Depot employee from Venezuela, said the program is a great idea since about 30 percent of shoppers are Hispanic at the Doraville store where he works.
"Customers shop where they feel welcome and comfortable and get the products and information they need," said Borges, who sported a badge saying "Yo hablo Espanol" — I speak Spanish.
"I have many regular customers who have told me they are comfortable coming to this store because they know we have bilingual associates."
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Same story from CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight transcript:
Home Depot, this country's biggest home improvement retailer, today announced plans to hire 20,000 new workers. What makes this initiative different is that Home Depot says it prefers to hire Spanish-speaking workers for those jobs. And even more surprising, Home Depot's partners in the campaign include groups that advocate amnesty for illegal aliens and U.S. driver's licenses for illegals.
Bill Tucker reports.
BILL TUCKER, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Home Depot is no stranger to marketing to the Hispanic marketplace. The home of the Los Angeles Major League soccer team is sponsored by Home Depot. Home Depot also sponsors the Mexican national soccer team.
And now the company is taking its relationship with the Hispanic community in a new direction. Home Depot wants to create 20,000 new jobs this year, and it's partnering with an array of Hispanic groups, hoping that they will help recruit the Hispanic bilingual workers.
DENNIS DONOVAN, HOME DEPOT: We see this as a real opportunity to work with these prominent Hispanic organizations, to tap into their strong networks of relationships and local offices that will not only help us fill our jobs, but also create employment opportunities.
TUCKER: The groups in turn will promote Home Depot.
ALFONSO MARTINEZ, HISPANIC ASSOCIATION ON CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY: One of the obvious outcomes of this is that Home Depot will earn the trust of the Hispanic community, which is such an important aspects for corporations reaching out to the Hispanic community.
Reporter: That alliance is made up of the ASPIRA association, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, SER-Jobs for Progress National, and the National Council of La Raza.
La Raza's involvement raises some eyebrows, because it is a politically active group on illegal immigration issues.
(I don't know what that means, so don't ask.)
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This will come in handy when I'm shopping for drywall. |
La Raza and their ilk do not speak for US Hispanics anymore than John Kerry speaks for America. They are way on the left and believe me, only the more liberal of hispanics (and they are not that many) support illegal immigration. Most hispanics (even legal residents) are as aghast at the immigration problem as anyone else. La Raza is about the most elitest group you could ever find. Think Jesse Jackson, only most hispanics are not as blindly swallowing the bullsh!t as the blacks are.
I cannot blame Home Depot for trying to expand their market.
My business thrives because of the fact that I and my employees speak Spanish. Not doing so would cost me customers.
Just great. Some more jobs that Americans could do normally, but can't because they don't speak a foreign language.
This trend has shut me out of a lot of jobs, that I would be otherwise qualified for, and no I don't have time to learn to speak espanol....
well they won't have to look far...
there's thousands of illegals walking up and down every Home Depot in America! LMAO
"La Raza and their ilk"
Just allies of the Corporate cheap labor lobby with a "liberal" face.
It looks like white folks had better learn Spanish if they want to compete for jobs at HD. It sounds like the multi-lingual gambit is an attempt to dodge laws banning racial discrimination, i.e., "Oh, we aren't hiring them because they are Hispanic, but because they are bi-lingual, the better to serve our diverse customer base."
It's a natural part of "assimilation" that the anti-immigrants accuse Hispanics of not doing.
Some of those Hispanics working on back hoes and road graders are home owners whose wives drive the kids to swim meets in their SUV. But all the anti-immigrants see are "illegals" ruining our culture and threatening our sovereignty.
At the one I've been to in LA, there are about 15 day-laborers - assumed to be illegal - who wait at the exit sitting on the curb. So when you go to Home Depot, you can not only buy your building supplies, but you can also pick up people to do the work.
That should help the Cambodian customers. So whose rights win?
Not where I live. The new home buyers are Asians and they are paying over asking price. They also won't hire people who do not speak English.
I refuse to do business with any company who makes hiring or marketing distinctions based upon race. So long, HD.
"But all the anti-immigrants see are "illegals" ruining our culture and threatening our sovereignty."
I try to scrupulously avoid lumping legals and illegals together.
I don't think "they" ruin our culture at all. For me, it's a matter of costs and negative macro-economic effects.
Anyone who reads this post, and still thinks that they are just taking the jobs we won't do, has to have a rude awakening..
So much for them learning to speak OUR language.
sw
Spanish needs to be a required course from Elementary on...
Well, HD really does serve a bilingual customer base. Look at most of the guys building houses around Atlanta, the same guys coming in to HD for drywall, wood and nails by the truckload. Se hablan Espanol mejor que Ingles. It's reality.
They all look alike to me.
Home Depot could recruit at WalMart. The last time I visited the local WalMart, I didn't hear one employee or customer who spoke English.
You got that right. The problem is the schools are having trouble funding the teachers to teach the Hispanic children English. We're going to have to fit this into the budget.
sw
Because assimilation doesn't happen in a day. Nor does learning a new language.
Those romanticized immigrants, the first generation that landed in New York from Europe in the 1800's, probably didn't learn English well at all. That's why you had neighborhoods that were German or Italian or Dutch. The kids learned English as they grew up, but the native language was spoken in most of those homes.
The older generation learned enough English to shop at the grocery, but that's about it.
Would I love for all immigrants to speak perfect English when they arrive? Of course. Hell, I'd be happy if the hip-hop generation of Americans spoke perfect English. The fact of the matter is that it takes time. In the mean time, these folks need to fix their plumbing and get some shingles for their roof, so they need somone at Home Depot that speaks their language.
This "trend" is nothing new.
I was refused many jobs I was qualified for when I lived in California because I didn't speak Spanish. I was told "if you want to work here, you should learn to speak Spanish." (This was 25 years ago)
I replied: "No. If I went to Mexico looking for work, I would expect to speak Spanish. But Not in the US."
I could have learned it - but that made me so angry that I refuse to out of principle - or stubbornness. Or both?
Read later.
Reminds me of when IBM had to buy stickers with "Basura" (or what ever the proper word is) on them because the cleaning crew couldn't figure out that the piles of trash in the hallway (all marked with "TRASH") were trash. How hard is it to learn "trash" when that's your job. How hard is it to learn "hammer", "nails", "lumber", "concrete", "paint"...?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/725312/posts
IBM has been trying the same sort of strategy, going after "minority" business. Here's a bit from IBM's VP of Diversity, Ted Childs.
In addition, IBM has a program that partners its executives with current or prospective customers from similar backgrounds. For instance, black IBM executives, in
addition to their regular duties, call on black business contacts, Hispanics call on Hispanics.
"I have a couple of accounts," Mr. Childs said. "I made my first call last year ... a brother-to-brother call." It's a strategy that has gone over well with the customers,
he said.
"We're going to see more companies owned by women or by ethnic minorities. If we get to them in their infancy and grow with them, that's how we'll grow," Mr.
Childs said.
"It's about opportunity, the opportunity for IBM to compete."
I sure hope Home Depot is checking their Green cards or it's off to Loews for me.
What happened to hiring employees, just regular folks.
Couldn't this move by Home depot be considered a Racist, Discriminating move?
Sigh...
English. Soon to become the New World's Latin.
#10
Oh, here we go again...............
There are many jobs in Mexico and around the world that one could not get without being able to speak English. Tourist related jobs, tech jobs, govt employees, transportation jobs, banking, air traffic controllers, etc...
What does "Oh, here we go again" mean? Or are you not able to express your arguments any clearer?
Just as lawbreaking Americans and law abiding Americans all look alike to me. But I still don't like Americans who knowingly violate the law.
"But all the anti-immigrants see are "illegals" ruining our culture and threatening our sovereignty."
Do a search here on FR. There are many studies done that document the monetary COST of illegals exceeds their supposed "benefit" to our society / economy.
Then why don't I see you posting articles and comments critical of people who violate OSHA laws, Civil Rights laws, gun laws, tax laws, EPA laws; ADA laws, etc...
No one's fooled.
No there are not. There are only a bunch of articles repeating the same mischairicterations of discredited studies comparing the amount that some imaginary group they have arbitrarily decided are illegal pay in taxes (estimated) verses the amount of government spending they arbitrarily assign to them.
But that same logic applies to all Americans except the upper 20% who, along with corporations pay 90% of the taxes.
Those arguments are typical of the house of cards upon which the anti-immigrants have built their platform.
When the immigration reform legislation comes up for consideration in the next couple years and the debate moves from fringe groups to the main public arena the anti-immigrants trying to use the same inane arguments that work on the one-percenters are going to be ridiculed into resorting to the same type name calling that they are resorting to on FR.
No doubt the usual suspect(s) will be on this thread supporting La Raza.
El bingo....we tiene un ganador!!!
"anti-immigrants "
Don't bother. I stopped reading there.
nice try though.
Why not try this though?
"Anti- ILLEGAL immigrants".
You might re-build some of your cred here on FR.
: ) That gave me a warm fuzzy feeling!
From what I understand, Home Depot already employs a lot of Spanish speaking workers, even on Lawn Guyland. The one in Brooklyn employed many Dominicans and Ecuadorans, not alot of Mexicans.
Spanish is a European (ie "white") language like English, even though most Mexicans are indeed racially mixed.
On another point, I had a Professor, a Holocaust refugee, who went to Mexico not speaking a word of Spanish. He eventually learned, although before he did he was able to find a job working for a fellow refugee.
Don't bother with the "one-trick-pony", I refuted with facts an outright lie, and was accused of not reading the statistics I posted...
Here's a study for you bayourod:
The Costs of Illegal Immigration
Illegals Cost Feds $10 Billion a Year; Amnesty Would Nearly Triple Cost
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalrelease.html
If you live in the bayou, you probably have no idea of what it's like to live in places like LA where you have to buy a home 2 hours driving distance away from your employment just so your kid will have a relatively safe place to live. Gangs are another great thing illegal immigrants have to offer.
bayourod: Then why don't I see you posting articles and comments critical of people who violate OSHA laws, Civil Rights laws, gun laws, tax laws, EPA laws; ADA laws, etc... No one's fooled.
So are you insinuating that I do like Americans who knowingly violate the law?
Yeah you got that right. You should see the queque for jobs in the morning.
CHEAP LABOR strikes again!
It is only the Hispanic community that has been, and continues to be, catered to. Millions of tax dollars thrown away on bilingual education with dismal results. Now corporate America follows suit.
Of course, they are already here preening.
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