Immigrant Latinos and the Recession

The current recession is having an especially severe impact on employment prospects for immigrant Hispanics, according to an analysis of the latest Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. The unemployment rate has increased more and the share of the working-age population that is employed has fallen more for immigrant Hispanics than for other racial and ethnic groups in the first year of the recession. Trends in other indicators during the one-year old recession, such as the change in labor force participation or the growth in the number of unemployed persons, also reveal a more severe impact on foreign-born Latinos. Native-born Hispanics and blacks in the labor market have also felt strong negative effects from the recession. However, changes in the employment rate and other indicators of labor market activity during the recession have been less severe for them than for foreign-born Hispanics. The report is based on an analysis of the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau. Estimates are presented for the fourth quarters of 2007 and 2008 encompassing the first year of the ongoing recession.