Thread: Report: Construction Helps Boost Hispanic Employment Figures

http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/ne ... e-news.asp

Report: Construction Helps Boost Hispanic Employment Figures

September 29, 2006

By Michael Todd

A new report on employment from the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center finds a raft of positive trends including a record low jobless rate, a marked reduction in that rate relative to the population as a whole, and faster wage growth than for any other subset of workers.

The report by Rakesh Kochhar, the center's associate director for research, cites construction as driving the gains. That sector added nearly a half million jobs between the second quarters of 2005 and 2006, the report says, and most of those new positions were filled by foreign-born Hispanics. That impact alone accounts for 47 percent of the total increase in Hispanic employment, the study finds, with professional services and wholesale/retail also making signal contributions.

It's not all good news, however – that sector is slowing down even as continued immigration swells the pool of workers. About a million Hispanics have been hired by the construction industry since 2003, with 90 percent of that increase posted in just two areas, the South and the West.

The author said the effects of rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina could not be teased out of the data, and that the growing Hispanic footprint in construction in the South predated the devastating storm.

"The recent pattern in employment does not necessarily mean that Hispanic workers did not show up in relatively large numbers in the hurricane-affected areas," he wrote. "To the extent that this was true, the data suggest that it was more a result of Hispanic construction workers relocating from neighboring areas in the South."

The Hispanic unemployment rate for the second quarter of 2006 hit a seasonally adjusted historic low of 5.2 percent. That figure is just 0.6 percentage points higher than the rate for all workers – the smallest gap since 1973, when separate figures on Hispanics were first taken. Traditionally, the gap is two full percentage points, and the author suggests the rates could converge at some point.

Meanwhile, among Hispanics, the jobless rate is actually lower – 3.9 percent in the second quarter – for the foreign-born.

While Hispanics are but 13 percent of the U.S. labor force, Pew reports, they represent 37 percent of the increase in employment. Again, it's the foreign-born workers who dominate – eight out of every 10 new jobs taken by a Hispanic went to a foreign-born worker.

In absolute terms, overall employment for Hispanics increased by 993,000 jobs over the past year.

Wage growth is also marked among Hispanics, but it starts from a lower base than for any other ethnic group. Median weekly earnings for Hispanics rose from $423 in the second quarter of 2005 to $431 in the second quarter of 2006. That reverses two years of declines.

"The gain nevertheless masked a significant loss," noted Mr. Kachhar. "Foreign-born Hispanics — the biggest part of the Latino labor pool and the ones who have benefited the most in terms of employment — actually experienced a decline in the median wage. ... Among native-born Latinos, the median wage increased from $481 to $487. For foreign-born Latinos, the median wage decreased from $400 in 2005 to $389 in 2006."

Figures for the "Latino Labor Report, 2006," are based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau.

In absolute terms, overall employment for Hispanics increased by 993,000 jobs over the past year.

Now why are the crops rotting in the fields???????????????????
Oh thats right they are doing jobs Americans do want to do..Like build!!!!!!