NewsTaco

By B.D. Campbell, HispanicBusiness.com

Latinos continue to make gains in the jobs market, with a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate that dropped in March to 9.2 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The Latino unemployment rate was 9.6 percent in February, which in turn was down slightly from 9.7 percent in January. The rate for Latinos a year ago was 10.3 percent.

Overall unemployment for the country dipped to 7.6 percent and the number of unemployed hovered at 11.7 million, the BLS reported. The number of long-term unemployed remained essentially the same at 4.6 million.

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[Photo by bjmccray]

By Hispanic Business

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Hispanics dropped slightly in February to 9.6 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The Hispanic unemployment rate was 9.7 percent in January, which in turn was up just slightly from 9.6 percent in December. The rate for Hispanics in February 2012 was 11.4 percent.

Overall unemployment for the country dipped to 7.7 percent.

There are 2.3 million idled workers in the Hispanic civilian labor force, out of a total Hispanic civilian workforce of 24.6 million.

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[Photo by zeevveez]

By Hispanic Business

There are 2.5 million idled workers in the Hispanic civilian labor force, out of a total Hispanic civilian workforce of 24 million.

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[Photo by Bytemarks]

By Emily Deruy, ABC/Univision

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[Photo from palantepov.com]

By Roque Planas, Huffington Post Latino Voices

Even as rightwing pundits like Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly paint the Latino community as over-reliant on government, a new study highlights that Hispanics often do not receive enough of the benefits they are entitled to.

Latinos are less likely than non-Hispanic whites to apply for unemployment insurance benefits or to receive them once they apply, according to the study published in the Monthly Labor Review and publicized in a briefing by the National Employment Law Project.

Based on the 2005 supplement of the Current Population Survey of 60,000 households, the study by Alix Gould-Werth and Luke Shaefer of the University of Michigan found that only 34 percent of Latinos applied for unemployment benefits, compared to 49.5 percent of non-hispanic whites. Of those who applied, 56.8 percent of Hispanic applicants received benefits, versus 70.9 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

Latinos were more likely than non-Hispanic whites to say they didn’t know they were eligible for benefits or that they didn’t know how to apply. Some 5.1 percent of Hispanic immigrants cited language as a barrier to apply…

READ MORE HERE

This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.

[Photo By Jennifer Smits]

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

The official Bureau of Labor Statistics summary, released this morning, paints a picture that many people are feeling good about: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 146,000 in November, and the unemployment rate edged down to 7.7 percent. It means that, overall, the U.S. economy is headed in the right direction; that we’re slowly putting the recession behind us; that more people are working, spending and churning the economy. Great.

A couple of paragraphs down from that initial statement is a breakdown of that overall number.

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (7.2 percent), adult women (7.0 percent), teenagers (23.5 percent), whites (6.8 percent), and Hispanics (10.0 percent) showed little or no change in November.

It’s the very last segment in that sentence that i’m interested in: Latinos, no change.

The difference is in the numbers nuance. Overall, 146,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy;  retail employment increased by 53,000; healthcare added 20,000 jobs; information employment went up by 12,000; hospitality increased by 23,000…

But construction, where many Latinos make their living, declined by 20,000 jobs; and manufacturing also decreased by 7,000. That mad ethe diffeence. So Latinos are finding work i this economy, but they’re losing their jobs at the same rate that they’re finding them.

And it’s worse among young Latinos between 18 and 29 years old. Their rate of unemployment is at 12.9% (13% for practical purposes).

This is important, not only for Latinos but for the economy as a whole. When the recession took it’s initial dive we were told that the recovery, when it came, would be long and jobless because the cause of the downturn was different than all other downturns. The housing market suffered the most and in turn construction was hit the hardest. So construction workers were like the canaries in the coal mine – the employment in this sector was the best indicator of the health of the economic recovery.

We may be doing well, but the rate of employment of construction workers, Latino construction workers specifically, tell us there’s still a long road ahead.

[Photo by  wools]

Thursday October 11, 2012

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

Latina vote: Mothers a political force in this election (Voxxi): Take a scalpel and dissect the Latino vote and you find that Latinas are the driving force. The bold prediction in this article: Latinas will elect the next president.

The Voting Rights Act Protects Two More States From Voter ID Laws (The Nation): If you’re keeping score (and you should if you’re paying attention), the latest states to have their Voter ID laws held back are South Carolina and Mississippi. This si a good article with good background information to bring you up to date.

3 Ways to Play Hispanic Population Growth (Investorplace.com): Really? A few things caught my attention about this post: First, that it blatantly pretends to give a formula to “play” Latinos – as if it was written for a secret meeting where you get in with secret handshakes, where no Latinos are allowed. Second, all of the examples in the post are large, big box, corporations. This isn’t a bad thing, per se, but when the article refers to Latino food it points out Burger King, McDonald’s and Wendy’s…who are “serving Mexican cuisine.” Not one iota of a sliver of a mention of a Latino owned business, nowhere, nada. The stark omissions make a case for the need for more Latinos in corporate boards and C suites.

Latino electorate largest ever; expect influence from those not voting, expert claims (PhysOrg): Very cool and very needed piece about Latino politics from a Physics publication! In essence, unregistered Latinos are engaged and waiting to formally engage with their vote. In the mean time they’re influencing their friends and families and and getting involved.

Southern Poverty Law Center files lawsuit against Alabama Department of Education over immigration records (Birmingham News): Think of it as legal jiu-jitsu. The Southern Poverty Law Center is suing the Alabama State department of Education for not releasing it’s own data. The state has public school enrollment data it collected before and after it enacted stringent anti-immigrant laws. The SPLC says that data shows the anti-immigrant laws were detrimental to the children of the state. But the state won’t release the post immigration law enrollment numbers. Wonder why?

 College-Educated Latinos More Financially ‘Disciplined’ (National Journal): Straight forward piece that makes several assumptions: that Latinos are bad money managers overall, until they get a college education; that money management and assimilation are synonymous; that American mainstream money management is superior. Take into account that the people surveyed self described themselves as “financially disciplined” and that the study was done by a financial institution (Northwestern Mutual). Context and POV says as much as the content of the story.

Supreme Court: If affirmative action is banned, what happens at colleges? (Christian Science Monitor): Good question, in light of the SCOTUS taking up affirmative action yesterday.  One alternative: class based (poverty?) admissions. Very interesting piece.

Illinois Teachers Lack Bilingual Training (National Journal): This is important in heavily Latino Chicago, but it also raises a question for the rest of the nation. With state and federal legislatures slashing education funding, and more Spanish speaking teachers needed to Latino learning gaps, this is a huge problem.

How Georgia’s Immigration Law Traps Nurses In A Paperwork Nightmare (Think Progress): Another item to toss in the unintended consequences bin. Georgia’s anti-immigrant law requires  that anyone who applies for a professional license renewal must prove their citizenship. That’s 475,000 licenses. You can imagine the backlog and the problems for the professionals who may not be able to practice their profession because a reduced state workforce – read here budget cuts – is making the process slower.

Workplace Fatalities on the Rise Again: Monthly Latino Employment Report (NCLR) Kudos top NCLR for keeping track of this and of the Latino unemployment numbers. Latino unemployment is now at 9.9%.

Fisher v. Texas is not about quotas, It’s about the economy (The Hill): This article follows this line: diversity in universities creates diversity in the workforce. Diversity in the workforce spurs innovation because people from different background, exchanging experience and ideas, produce new knowledge. So today’s battle in the Supreme Court is about tomorrow’s achievement and innovation. Simple. Good read.

By Griselda Neváres, Voxxi

The unemployment rate among Hispanics in May rose significantly to 11.0 percent, up from 10.3 percent in April.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that overall the economy added 69,000 jobs in May, bringing the national unemployment rate to 8.2 percent. That’s a 0.1 percent rise from last month, the first increase in 11 months.

Last year during this time, the unemployment rate among Hispanics reached 11.8 percent and the national rate was 9.0 percent.

Korn said Obama has done little to help Latinos get back to work.

“Hispanics are still experiencing an all-time high unemployment rate at 11.0 percent. Mr. President, where are the jobs?” she stated.

In addition to Hispanics, blacks also saw a notable increase in their unemployment rate. It went from 13.0 percent in April to 13.6 in May. For Asians (5.2 percent) and whites (7.4 percent) the unemployment rate stayed the same.

The construction industry, which employs a large number of Hispanics, lost 28,000 jobs in May. Meanwhile, a rapid growth in jobs was seen in other industries: Health care added 33,000; transportation and warehousing added 36,000; wholesale trade added 16,000; and Manufacturing added 12,000.

She said the Obama administration has introduced efforts that aim to support the unemployed and spur more economic growth. Some include rewarding companies that bring back jobs to the United States from overseas, investing in tax credits for small businesses and investing in clean energy manufacturing.

“These are bipartisan initiatives that will create jobs, help restore security for the middle class and further the progress of our economic recovery,” Solís said. “Every day Congress doesn’t act is another day our communities suffer, another day middle class families struggle and another day our children lose out on a better future.”

This article first apeared in Voxxi.

Griselda Nevárez is a reporter with Hispanic Link News Service in Washington D.C.

[Photo by palantepov.com]

The headline across the top of a Pew Hispanic Center press release is ominous: The Toll of the Great Recession.

The body of the story doesn’t get any better.

More Latino children are living in poverty—6.1 million in 2010—than children of any other racial or ethnic group. This marks the first time in U.S. history that the single largest group of poor children is not white. In 2010, 37.3% of poor children were Latino, 30.5% were white and 26.6% were black.

Consider this the shadow side of all the good news and potential we’ve been talking about lately: the increase in U.S. Latino population, the relative youth of the Latino community, the potential for the national workforce, politics and education. Latino kids have begun to tip the scales in the number of children in elementary school classrooms, and now we get to look behind the curtain.

In 1976 1.4 million Latino children lived in poverty, in 2010 that number increased to 6.1 million. But a more stark statistic is that since 2007, a mere three years, that number climbed from 4.5 million to 6.1 million. That incredible jump that put Latino kids at the top of the poverty heap (or bottom, depending on your perspective) occurred during the Great Recession.

And it hasn’t ended. While experts fret over the “jobless recovery” and top tier earners have put the bad times behind them, unemployment for Latinos remains high: the recession is no where near being over.

At its beginning, the unemployment rate among Latino workers increased rapidly, especially among immigrant workers. Today, the unemployment rate among Latinos, at 11.1%, is higher than the national unemployment rate of 9.1%. Household wealth among Latinos declined more sharply than either black or white households between 2005 and 2009. And according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food insecurity among Latino households increased sharply at the start of the Great Recession. In 2008, nearly a third (32.1%) of Latino households with children faced food insecurity, up from 23.8% in 2007.

This is a very different reality than the one that the politicians are harping about. But it couldn’t be any more relevant. Because if nations are judged by the manner in which they treat the least among them, we’re not doing well at all. We can easily say that the increase in poor Latino kids was due to same economic downturn that affected all Americans, and we’d be right. The problem, I think, is that while the economy was spiraling downward no one was paying attention to these kids, so why should they pay attention to them now?

No one noticed how dramatically these children were being pushed into unhealthy, undernourished conditions. There are no PAC’s to raise funding for their cause, no message machines to spin their side after a debate, no national movements that put them front and center of the discussions. And yet, this is the future workforce that we talk about; these are the children we’re relying on to become educated and lead us in the years to come; these are the kids we’ll all be depending on.

The difference? Today, those 6.1 million niños can’t vote.

[Photo by cliff1066™]

If you’re Latino and looking for a job you’re 1 in 10 (actually you’re 1.1 in 10, I rounded). This recession has been harder on Latinos than it has on the general population and even though official word is that we’re in a recovery, they’re quick to add that it’s a jobless recovery- which bring the question: who’s recovering?

That said, if you’re looking for work you won’t find it in official reports and public statements. You’re going to have to do what everyone else looking for a job is doing, only better.

So I’ve got some tips for you. And before you go thinking “who is Victor to give me tips on finding a job?” – I’ll tell you where I got them.

I made some friends recently at a recruiter’s un-conference, called TalentNet Live. It’s a social recruiting conference that brings together the brightest brains and best experience from around the world to chat and exchange ideas about finding and hiring the best talent.

Luminaries in the field – like Robert Scobel, China Gorman, Don Ramer, Bill Boorman, Maren Hogan, and Jason Seiden - held court in free-flowing conversations with about 30 human resources and talent recruiting executives. I went as the invited guest of one of the best professionals there, Alicia Arenas, of Sanera PDC.

I took furious notes about what HR executives are thingking, what they’re looking for and what get’s their attention. But then I wondered, is any of this different for Latinos?

I posed the question directly to almost all of the presenters and they gave me mostly the same answers. Michael Long, from Rackspace, was very concise and to the point. Here’s how he answered my questions.

NewsTaco: What is the best way for Latinos to use social media in their job searches?

Michael Long: I suppose that this applies to anyone who wants to use social media for a job search, but I would recommend some heavy networking.  Do some research, figure out where you want to work and use the tools to find people who currently work for the company.  From there, structure a plan to reach out to each person.  If you can’t find an email address, sometimes the best way is to call the company directly.  Job search is about discipline and consistency.  Seekers need to treat their search like a job and they will eventually find success.

NT: Is there a difference to recruiters?

ML: When it comes to recruiters, many of them are impressed with candidates who come in knowing as much as possible about the company.  If someone had the foresight to research the company, get to know some contributors and then reach out, it will look impressive.  That said, recruiters stay extremely busy, so it’s important for job seekers to pursue various companies at once in hopes of finding the right position. Don’t take rejection personally and realize that we are still in a very competitive job market.  As I pointed out with the first question, discipline and consistency will go a long way.

NT: Should they highlight their culture (ethnicity)?

ML: Given the demand in the market for diversity of thought and background, I think there are some real positives that come along with highlighting involvement.  If someone is involved with clubs or associations that highlight their background, I think it would be great to have them include it in their resumes.  Most of the time, this can come under a section titled “Involvement” on their resume.  That said, I would not recommend overwhelming their resume with references to any particular ethnic background – i.e. Latino Professional Seeking Great Company … that would be a bit too forward.

NT: Is there anything different that Latino job seekers should do to be noticed by recruiters?

ML: I don’t think there is anything in particular that Latino job seekers should do differently.  Just be confident in their heritage and recognize that it should in no way represent a disadvantage in their job search.  At the end of the day, everyone wants to join a company that accepts each individual for who they are.  So, I always recommend that job seekers first understand their own narratives and what makes them stand out as a great candidate for the companies they are applying to.  Practice, discipline and consistency will greatly improve a job seekers chances of identifying and securing the best employment.

NT: The feeling of many Latinos is that we need to work twice as hard to be noticed.  How does this look to recruiters?

ML: I don’t know recruiters who judge Latino candidates this way.  In general, I think that the candidates who work the hardest will win.  Be yourself, be proud of your background and, again, know your story and the value you bring to the table.

If you needed these tips and found them helpful, good luck!

If you’ve got a job you probably know someone who doesn’t, so pass this along, any help is appreciated, no?

[Photo by jamestruepenny]