Workforce Language Services

The Contra Costa Times reports on the effect of the recession on foreign-born Latinos.  The article compares unemployment rates of Latino immigrants to those of American-born minorities, and notes that, while the percentages still favor the former population, the rates of unemployment still surge for thsi group:

In at least one sense, immigrant Latinos are still better off than native-born Latinos and African-Americans, two groups that have higher overall rates of unemployment. About 11.5 percent of African-Americans were unemployed in the last three months of 2008, and 9.5 percent of native-born Latinos were without work, said Kochhar, who looked at information from a monthly survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau.But in the past year, no group has dropped from the nation’s workforce at a faster rate than Latinos from abroad, Kochhar said. Some of the problems along Monument Boulevard can be measured by the record 6,500 people who now seek free food every month from the Monument Crisis Center, said Sandra Scherer, the nonprofit’s executive director.

To read the entire article, click here. And for related commentary from the New York Times about compassion for workers regardless of immigration status, click here.