LEWISTON – A research project by the city and state Department of Labor is expected to quantify what’s so far been just a guess: the employment prospects of limit-ed- or non-English-speaking people who receive city aid.

“If you don’t have good data, you’ll never have the programs you need, or the means to measure the success or failure of those programs,” said Phil Nadeau, deputy city administrator.

He and John Dorrer, director of the state Labor Market Information Services, met a year ago to hash out the possibilities of combining data from an assortment of city, state and federal agencies to find information that ultimately would help immigrants find and keep jobs.

“We’re taking the city’s data set and merging it with wage records,” said Dorrer, who spoke of the project at a seminar on work-force projections at the Lewiston Public Library last week. “We’re looking at where they entered the labor market, what they earn, how long they stay, what their mobility patterns are.”

Analysts are looking at the city’s general assistance records since 2003. Nadeau said he believes there are about 3,000 immigrants living in Lewiston now, of whom about 500 are able-bodied and eligible to work. He said he thinks about 200 of those eligible have jobs.

“But that’s based on rough, anecdotal information,” Nadeau said. “We need something with better methodology.”

He hopes results from the data will start to come in early next year. The information is important, since labor analysts predict a shortage of workers throughout the country in coming years. One possible solution is bringing more legal immigrants into the labor force.

Nadeau said confidentiality issues were resolved before the project began. It doesn’t disclose the names of general assistance recipients.

He added that he expects other communities with immigrant populations, such as Portland, will be interested in the model once the methodology is established. By way of coincidence, he was talking to people from the Portland and Lewiston CareerCenters a few weeks ago and they were talking about jobs available to people who speak little or no English.

Historically, Lewiston and Auburn have had an abundance of jobs that required few skills. The shoe shops and textile mills hired immigrant laborers for decades, Nadeau said.

“Now there are more opportunities in Portland,” he added, pausing. “I never thought I’d hear those words spoken. … But the absence of those jobs is hurting the chances of people here to find jobs.”