WASHINGTON — As the construction industry has slumped, the unemployment rate among Latino immigrants has climbed, an analysis released Wednesday shows.
For the first time in five years, foreign-born Latinos have a higher unemployment rate than do Latinos born in the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center’s analysis of census and Labor Department data.
The unemployment rate for Latino immigrants was 7.5 percent during the first three months of this year, compared with 6.9 percent among native-born Latinos. During the same period in 2007, the rates were 5.5 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.
“The unemployment rate has shot up because of the slump in construction, and Hispanic workers had done very well finding jobs in the construction industry as it was booming,” said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research. “Having become somewhat dependent on this industry, they were more vulnerable to the downturn.”
An overwhelming majority of jobs lost in the construction industry were held by foreign-born Latinos.
Mexican immigrants have been hardest hit; their unemployment rate jumped from 5.5 percent last year to 8.4 percent. The employment downturn added about 255,000 Latino immigrants, most of whom are Mexican, to the ranks of the unemployed.
Foreign-born Latinos could have entered the country legally or illegally. The report does not divide the immigrant numbers along those lines, although undocumented workers can be found in the construction industry.
For that reason, stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws also has played a role in the job losses, Rakesh said.
“The workers were in the wrong sector, the wrong segment of that sector and in many cases the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Michael Fix, vice president of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that studies immigration issues.
