Focus Upon Jobs: The Day After
Creating jobs was the overriding subject of Wednesday’s State of the Union Address. The President acknowledged that job creating and growth will be the primary focus of his administration in 2010, in order to restore prosperity to America’s middle class. While the President acknowledged that the national unemployment rate of ten perecent was unusually high, he did not mention that in some areas of Indian Country, the unemployment rate has consistenly hovered at 50 to 70 percent for many years. Senator Dorgan and fellow members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs conducted a hearing Thursday that launched a dialogue addressing the high unemployment in Indian Country. The panel of witnesses at this hearing included key leaders in the federal government, tribal government, and several corporations based in Alaska, but did not include business owners from privately-held tribal member-owned entities. As many economists have detailed in reports and the President stated Wednesday night, government programs designed to bolster the nation’s small businesses will help set the country on a speedier path to an economic recovery. Nationwide, small businesses compose about 50 percent of the country’s total number of business enterprises.
Small businesses deserve a place at the table both in the nation’s dialogue on economic recovery and in the dialogue addressing Indian Country’s battle with high unemployment. Williams Kastner represents one such company—Sister Sky—which took the initiative to draft and send its comments to Capitol Hill for inclusion in a discussion on how to build commerce within Indian Country. Sister Sky is a Native women-owned company with headquarters on the Spokane Indian Reservation. They provide high-quality natural bath products and employ a workforce largely composed of Native Americans in a community where jobs are scarce. The company owners believe that its business success can be useful to fostering job creation within tribal communities. Sister Sky executives crafted their comments to lawmakers in D.C.with the desire to participate in a dialogue that will be both good for businesses nationwide and good for their local tribal community. Following Sister Sky’s lead, tribal entrepreneurs and tribal-owned entities should direct their comments on building sustained tribal economies to members of Congress and the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs so that their insights may be included in this important economic policy discussion.
In addition to Sister Sky’s participation in plans for economic revitalization, the Pathways to Prosperity Program, operated by the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, is sponsoring a career fair on February 4, 2010, in order to connect employers with job seekers. The career fair is scheduled to be held at the Daybreak Star Indian Center located in Discovery Park, Seattle. There will be state, county, and tribal governments present to recruit potential applicants. This event has, in the past, also attracted the likes of non-tribal businesses such as REI and Starbucks so it should prove useful for all types of applicants seeking work.
