HispanicBusiness

This morning, the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization devoted to understanding the U.S. Hispanic population and to chronicling its growing impact on the entire nation, released "Latino Labor Report, 2008: Construction Reverses Job Growth for Latinos."

The study analyzes data from the first quarter of 2007 through the first quarter of 2008. It points to a slump in the construction industry as the primary driver behind the 6.5 percent unemployment rate for U.S. Hispanics, which compares to 4.7 percent for all non-Hispanics -- a gap that, only a short time ago at the end of 2006, had measured 0.5 percent.

According to Rakesh Kochhar, Associate Director for Research, Pew Hispanic Center, and the study's primary author, "To put it roughly, Hispanics had a rough time in the labor market in 2007."

Immigrants were hit particularly hard. Latinos as a whole make up 14.2 percent of the U.S. labor force; according to the report, about 52.5 percent of working-age Latinos (ages 16 and older) are immigrants. [The report does not distinguish between documented and undocumented workers, as this information is not in the source data.] Hispanics lost 250,000 jobs in the construction sector alone--a sector that is characterized by high Hispanic, particularly immigrant, participation. Hispanic immigrants' unemployment rate measured 7.5 percent in the first quarter of this year--notable as the first time since 2003 that a higher proportion of foreign-born Latinos was unemployed than those who are native born.

Hispanic women left the labor force in greater proportion and experienced greater increases in unemployment than Hispanic men. According to the report, approximately 130,000 more Latino women became unemployed in 2007, translating to an unemployment rate of 7.0 percent. While Hispanic women are largely not in the construction industry, Kochhar attributed this to their high participation in the non-durable goods manufacturing industry, with jobs such as meatpacking.

Despite the disproportional impact the slowed economy has had on Latino immigrant workers, the Pew Hispanic Center sees no indication that they are leaving the U.S. labor market. Susan Minushkin, Deputy Director of the Pew Hispanic Center, indicated that the center would be following up on this issue later this summer.