Latest US Jobs Report Says Latino Unemployment at Lowest Level in History

Dec 9, 2017
12:42 PM

The latest jobs reported released Friday by the United States Department of Labor said that the current unemployment rate among U.S. Latinos is at 4.7 percent, which would be the lowest figure since the federal government has been tracking this figure.

The following chart (red frames are ours) shows the latest data from the Friday report. According to the Labor Department, “The population figures are not adjusted for seasonal variation; therefore, identical numbers appear in the unadjusted and seasonally adjusted columns.”

According to Pew, which wrote about the Latino unemployment rate in September, the September 4.7 percent rate is the lowest ever. And the November 4.7 percent would match that number.

Despite this low figure, it is important to note that the jobs report also noted that the U.S. Latino labor participation rate (the number of people who are actually part of the active labor force) stands at 65.8 percent—or in other words, 34.2 percent (around 14.3 million U.S. Latinos) are not in the labor force. In 2006, Pew noted, the labor participation rate was at 69%.