There is little disagreement among the state’s business leaders that Maine needs more people. The Maine State Chamber of Commerce, Maine Department of Labor and others have long said that the state needs new people to maintain and grow our economy. The state’s 10-year economic development strategy plan, released in 2020, set a target of attracting 75,000 new workers by 2029.
“As many know, Maine is one of the oldest states in the nation, and the aging of our population will result in the loss of an estimated 65,000 from our workforce over the next 10 years — and that is in addition to the tight labor market the state is currently confronting,” the report said. “There is not one simple solution to this challenge, but many strategies that, when pieced together, can help us tackle this issue.”
Here are some of the strategies listed in the report:
There are about 100,000 working-age Mainers who are not in the labor pool. More efforts must be made to bring these people into the state’s workforce.
Another strategy calls for a branding effort to draw talented workers to the state by promoting Maine as a good place to live and work.
Welcoming immigrants from other countries is also listed in the report.
Earlier this month, Gov. Janet Mills reiterated the imperative to grow the state’s workforce when she signed an executive order creating an Office of New Americans. The goal of the new office is to incorporate immigrants into Maine’s workforce and communities to strengthen the state’s economy.
Given the widespread agreement on the need to grow the state’s workforce, and to include people who are new to Maine and to America in that effort, it is disheartening to see this work misconstrued, and then circulated and used by extremists who oppose diversity.
The Maine Wire, the news arm of the conservative Maine Policy Center, erroneously said that Mills hopes to plug Maine’s workforce hole entirely with migrants from other countries. “Maine Governor Wants to Resettle 75,000 Foreign-Born Migrants in Maine by 2029,” a headline on an Aug. 3 article by editor Steve Robinson said.
Later in the story, Robinson wrote: “It’s unclear whether Gov. Mills intends for those 75,000 new workers to come exclusively from foreign-born migration.”
It’s not unclear in the economic development plan that was the source of that number, which lists numerous ways to grow Maine’s workforce.
In the same Maine Wire story, Maine House Republican leader Billy Bob Faulkinham took the “foreign-born migrant” fallacy a step further by suggesting that all of these new workers would be asylum seekers.
“I hope the governor corrects her statement about adding 75,000 asylum seekers to the state of Maine,” he told the Maine Wire.
Faulkingham is right that the governor’s office, and others in positions of power, have mishandled aspects of the asylum seeker situation. More than 1,600 asylum seekers, mostly from Africa, have arrived in Maine so far this year, most of them to Portland. They arrive without support from the federal government and are prohibited from working for at least six months after their petition for asylum.
Until recently, hundreds of asylum seekers were staying at the Portland Expo as more permanent housing was found. Some were also staying in the city’s new emergency shelter, displacing some unhoused people who also need longer-term shelter. The state, Portland, South Portland and other communities have largely shouldered the expense of helping these recent immigrants start new lives here.
As we’ve written before, this has not been a great situation for any of those involved, including those seeking refuge from persecution and abuse.
But, to suggest that state leaders are planning to bring in 75,000 immigrants or asylum seekers is clearly wrong. And potentially dangerous. The leader of a group of neo-Nazis that is reportedly building a training camp in Maine circulated the Maine Wire story shortly before a group of neo-Nazis rallied in Augusta, the Maine Beacon, a publication of the liberal Maine People’s Alliance, reported. These neo-Nazis reportedly yelled at passing vehicles with people of color inside, made Nazi salutes and shouted “refugees go home.”
Maine needs more workers. Some of them will be Mainers who return to the workforce. Some will be people who move here from other states. Some will come from other countries. Some will be asylum seekers.
