A recent report commissioned by the Department of Labor found that Hispanics need more help finding jobs than other groups, even as the economy continues to recover.
“We know more needs to be done to get Hispanics back to work,” Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis told reporters during a conference call yesterday. “There are 50.5 million Latinos in the country.”
The report found that Hispanics have an average unemployment rate that is higher than that of Anglos and African Americans were more likely to be less educated, and have a higher fatality rate in the workplace.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Labor Department have also come to an agreement, said Solis. ICE will suspend worksite immigration investigations for sites where the Labor Department is investigating labor disputes such as wage and hour, family and medical leave, discrimination or health and safety issues.
Solis called the report titled “The Hispanic Labor Force in the Recovery,” a fitting tribute to Cesar Chavez, the farm worker and civil rights activist who founded the United Farm Workers (UFW). Chavez‘s 84th birthday would have been Thursday.
In 2010, Hispanics had an unemployment rate of 12.5 percent while whites had a rate of 8.7 percent
Hispanics, however, spent less time on the job hunt than whites or blacks and a lower number of them were counted as long-term jobless, which is defined as 27 weeks or longer by the Labor Department.
Education is still one of the main reason Hispanics are behind in employment levels, according to the report. The unemployment rate for workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher was on average 6 percent last year, but for workers without a high school diploma the rate was 13.2 percent.
In order to promote the attainment of good jobs among Hispanics, the report proposes enrolling more of them in government-sponsored job training programs for low-income and at-risk youth; providing training opportunities in energy efficiency and renewable energy industries; and encouraging more Hispanics to pursue careers in engineering, technology and science.
The study is the first of its kind to examine Latino workers at the national level.
“At nearly 23 million, people of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity represented 15 percent of the United States‘ labor force in 2010. By 2018, Hispanics are expected to comprise 18 percent of the labor force,” the report said.
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