Several individuals gave an update to the Greene County Board of Supervisors this week on an initiative to attract the Latino population to work and live in the county.

Nueva Vida en Greene County is led by Greene County Development Corporation, along with Carlos Arguello with Latino IQ and several local employers. GCDC President Sid Jones talked about the overall goals of the program was to help fulfill the over 200 available jobs in the county, which then could spur new Latino businesses to locate within the county, and create additional housing. 

Arguello explained that he is working with employers to get their environments ready for Latino employees, along with installing systems and tools to manage that, as well as the storytelling aspect to potential employees and hiring and retaining quality workers.

“We’re also advertising new jobs now for the last 40 days and we’ve been doing this with New Way (Scranton Manufacturing). We’re about to switch employer now and start with AAI (American Athletic Incorporated) and kind of start taking to rotate the rest of the businesses.”    

Arguello noted that in the last 40 days three applications have been received through the program. 

Moving forward, Arguello said they are wanting to do additional job fairs and town hall meetings to continually update residents about the project, as well as have a transportation plan in place by early January to commute Latinos from surrounding areas to Jefferson for work.