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August, 1988, Vol. 111, No. 8

The growing presence of Hispanics
in the U.S. work force

Peter Cattan

One of the outstanding features of the employment expansion during the 1980's has been the rapid growth of Hispanics in the U.S. labor market. This growth has been fueled by a large inflow of Hispanics from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Civil wars, economic problems, and poverty in some of these areas have induced large numbers of workers to migrate to the United States in search of jobs and better opportunities. Combined with the number of Hispanics currently living here, the continuing large inflow has made them the Nation's fastest growing labor force group. Thus, while the non-Hispanic work force rose by 10.4 percent between 1980 and 1987, the number of Hispanic workers increased by 39 percent, reaching 8.5 million in 1987.

In recent years, procedures have been developed which are designed to improve Hispanic population estimates from the Current Population Survey (CPS), the main source of the data in this report. This article is based on these revised data.¹

Although Hispanics made up slightly under 7 percent of total employment, they accounted for almost a fifth of the total increase in the Nation's jobs between 1980 and 1987. In all, Hispanic employment increased by 2.3 million during the period covered. (See Table 1.) Mexican-Americans—by far the largest group of Hispanics—were also the fastest-growing group; their employment total rose by nearly 50 percent over the 1980-87 period, as shown in the following tabulation.²

Change, 1980-87         ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Number in thousands	1980	1987	Number	Percent
Total, Hispanic origin …..	5,457	7,790	2,333	43
Mexican ……………….....	3,175	4,690	1,515	48
Puerto Rican ………….....	600	744	144	24
Cuban …………………....	409	518	109	27
Other Hispanics ………...	1,273	1,838	565	44

 The rate of Hispanic employment growth has been particularly impressive following the onset of the current expansion. Since 1983, Hispanic employment has increased by 28 percent, almost three times the rate for other workers. This resulted from the surge in the Hispanic population noted earlier. To a lesser extent, the sharper pace of Hispanic employment growth also resulted from somewhat greater increases in the percentage of this population that is employed—the employment-population ratio. As shown in the following tabulation the ratio for Hispanics rose in spurts—by about 5½ percentage points between 1983 and 1987, compared with 3½ points for non-Hispanics. Also, the ratio had declined more sharply for Hispanics than for non-Hispanics between 1980 and 1982, a period punctuated by two recessions.

This excerpt is from an article published in the August 1988 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.

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Footnotes

1 Hispanics refers to all persons who identify themselves as of Mexican, Puerto Rican (living on the mainland), Cuban, Central or South American, or of other Hispanic origin or descent. Non-Hispanics is a residual category referring to persons of all other origins or descents.

   The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a monthly sample survey of about 125,000 persons in some 60,000 households representing the U.S. working-age population (16 years and over). (Beginning in April 1988, the size of the CPS sample was cut back to 55,800 households.)  Conducted for the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the Bureau of the Census, the CPS provides information on the Nation's labor force, employment, and unemployment by economic and demographic characteristics. Beginning in January 1986, the Census Bureau introduced major changes into the independent population estimates used in the weighting procedure for the CPS. The new weights compensate for underestimates of illegal immigrants and legal emigrants, and substantially raised the population and employment estimates of Hispanics. Major series (for example, numbers in the population and labor force by sex and age) were revised back to 1980, while more detailed data (for example, employment by occupation) are available in revised form only back to 1986.

   For an overview of the recent changes and their effect on the CPS, see Jeffrey Passel, "Changes in the Estimation Procedure in the Current Population Survey Beginning in January 1986," Employment and Earnings, February 1986, pp.7-10. For additional detail on procedures and findings concerning estimates of legal and illegal immigration and emigration, see Robert Warren and Jeffrey Passel, "A Count of the Uncountable; Estimates of Undocumented Aliens Counted in the 1980 United States Census," Demography, August 1987, pp.375-94; and Karen Woodrow, Jeffrey Passel, and Robert Warren, "Recent Immigration to the United States—Legal and Undocumented: Analysis of Data from the June 1986 Current Population Survey," paper presented at the 1987 annual meetings of the Population Association of America, Chicago, IL, Apr. 29-May 2. For an overview of earlier changes in the CPS weights, see Philip Rones, "Revisions in Hispanic population and labor force data," Monthly Labor Review, March 1985, pp.43-44.

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