Oregon Public Broadcasting

It's been a year since Portland City Council authorized the creation of a day labor hiring site. The site, housed in a trailer on a busy corner of town, was intended to protect undocumented workers from exploitation.

About two dozen men were waiting for work at the site on a recent afternoon, but business has been slow.

Ignacio Paramo is the coordinator for the hiring site. He says he's noticed a marked drop in the number of employers stopping by.

Ignacio Paramo:  "Definitely, we're really hit by the economy. Even though we see an increase in day laborers, especially new faces."

He guesses that for this time of year, which is typically a slow time for construction work, he's seeing about twice the number of men looking for work, with fewer places for them to go.

Since it opened last June, the site has assigned about 2400 hires.

Paramo also says he's heard several anecdotal stories of workers leaving town, traveling south to their home countries, because of the economic slump.