WASHINGTON, D.C. - The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) today hosted a meeting of the nation's leading Hispanic serving organizations (HSOs), to explore strategies to improve Hispanic's access to federal employment.

"As the new OPM director, I am looking forward to increasing collaboration and strengthening our relationship with Hispanic serving organizations," said OPM Director Linda M. Springer. "This relationship is pivotal to OPM's efforts to reaching out to more communities, so that all Americans interested in public service know of the opportunities that are available to them."

Today's meeting gave OPM and HSOs the opportunity to find ways to leverage their combined information and community relationships to address the underrepresentation of Hispanics in the federal government. During the event, participants shared opinions and ideas on this issue as a means to lay the groundwork for cooperative opportunities. As the first step, OPM encouraged HSOs to add links from their organizations' websites to the government's premier employment website USAJobs, and other gateways to federal employment and educational funding such as StudentJobs and e-Scholar.

OPM also gave a presentation on the June 2005 Statistical Information on Hispanic Employment in Federal Agencies Report to the President. This and previous reports to the President can be viewed at http://www.opm.gov/Diversity/Hispanic/index.asp.

The meeting with HSOs represented one of OPM's ongoing Hispanic outreach efforts. Last month, OPM hosted a meeting of the Interagency Task Force on Hispanic Employment in federal government. The task force includes representatives from 40 federal agencies who were invited to discuss Hispanic employment issues.

Our mission is to ensure the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce. OPM supports U.S. agencies with personnel services and policy leadership including staffing tools, guidance on labor-management relations and programs to improve work force performance.