Construction companies that are funded by the state to build projects in the seven-county metro area will be expected to double or nearly triple their minority hiring goals under ambitious guidelines announced by the governor's office.
Gov. Mark Dayton's office and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights on Wednesday, March 21, issued new county-specific targets for minority hiring, increasing the goal to 32 percent in Hennepin and Ramsey counties.
In the past, goals made no distinction between metro counties, and most state construction contracts set a target of hiring 11 percent minority workers. If a project was especially large, the goal increased to 18 percent.
The new goals, which are more aggressive and targeted, are based on a state analysis of demographic data collected from 2006 to 2010 for the federal American Community Survey. State officials said the goals are more in keeping with current population trends, which show the metro area's minority population growing at a rapid clip.
For state-funded projects within Hennepin and Ramsey counties, the minority hiring goal is now 32 percent. The goal in Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Scott and Washington counties will be 22 percent.
The goal for female participation in the seven-county metro area will be 6 percent. The goals apply to construction contracts in excess of $100,000 and to employers with more than 40 full-time employees.
"The goals are official, and they take effect on April 4," said Jeff

Holman, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. "They do not apply to the Central Corridor project or to existing projects."
The goals apply only to construction projects and not to vendors. The new targets were applauded by Luz Maria Frias, director of the St. Paul Department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity, and Velma Korbel, director of the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights, in a written statement from the Department of Human Rights.
Frias said the new targets will help close the disparity between white and minority hiring in the Twin Cities, which is considered to be among the largest in the nation. Korbel said her city has not updated its workforce goals since 2006.
Minority hiring within the construction industry remains controversial, given the intense slowdown and high rate of unemployment in the industry in recent years. The federal government set a goal of making sure 18 percent of the workers constructing the Central Corridor light-rail line are people of color, but the actual results have tended to fall short each season.
Some contractors have pointed to the difficulty of finding women and minorities with specialized skills for sensitive projects, such as underground utility work in confined spaces. Others have acknowledged a general preference toward hiring back their regular crew each season, given that many of those workers might otherwise remain unemployed.
Advocates for increased minority hiring say Minnesota needs to turn around an alarming trend.
In October, the Ramsey County Workforce Investment Board and a commission of business, nonprofit, education and public officials called special attention to racial hiring disparities. A study found a 3-to-1 hiring gap, with 20 percent of U.S.-born African-Americans in the Twin Cities being jobless, compared with roughly 6 percent of whites.
The population of Ramsey County is about 30 percent minority, and about 25 percent minority in Hennepin County. Those percentages are projected to grow.
State law has required the Department of Human Rights to issue goals and timetables for minority and female hiring in state-funded construction projects since 1985.
Frederick Melo can be reached at             651-228-2172      . Follow him attwitter.com/FrederickMelo.