By Angelo Falcon (February 5, 2010)
Today, Keith Hall, Commissioner of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported before the Congressional Joint Economic Committee that:
"The unemployment rate declined from 10.0 to 9.7 percent in January. Nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged (-20,000) and on net has shown little movement over the last 3 months. In January, job losses continued in construction and in transportation and warehousing, while employment increased in temporary help services and retail trade. With revisions released today, job losses since the start of the recession in December 2007 totaled 8.4 million, substantially more than previously reported."
While this news is mixed in terms of whether or not there is a real recovery in place, this report brings continued bad economic news for Latinos. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Latino households in January was an estimated 12.6 percent, compared to 8.7 percent for non-Latino Whites.
While making up 15 percent of the country's population (not including Puerto Rico), the 2,849,000 Latinos who were unemployed in January 2010 represented 30.6 percent of the total unemployed in the US.
Since January of last year, the unemployment rate for Latinos rose from 9.9 to 12.6 percent. It was, however, little changed from December 2009.
Among Latino adults (ages 20 and over), the unemployment rate for Latino woman last month was 11.5 percent, compared to 13.8 percent for Latino men. For young Latinos (ages 16 to 19), the unemployment rate was 37.2 percent.
The BLS also reported the unemployment rates for the following groups in the general population, among others:
26.4 percent --- Teenagers
16.5 percent --- Blacks
15.4 percent --- Persons with Disabilities
12.6 percent --- Gulf War-era Veterans
11.8 percent --- Foreign-born Adults
10.3 percent --- US-born Adults
10.0 percent --- Adult Men
8.7 percent --- Whites
7.9 percent --- Adult Women
These unemployment statistics are based on the results of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly survey of about 50,000 households conducted Stateside by the Bureau of Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The CPS has been conducted in the United States every month since 1940 when it began as a Work Projects Administration program. It has been expanded and modified several times since then. Being based on a multistage stratified statistical sample, its results are estimates that are subject to sampling error.
Meanwhile, in Puerto Rico, the latest unemployment figures are for December 2009 and the unemployment rate for that month was 14.3 percent (up from 13.1 percent a year earlier).
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