As it continues to grow, the composition of the Hispanic population is undergoing a fundamental change: Births in the United States are outpacing immigration as the key source of growth. Over the next twenty years this will produce an important shift in the makeup of the Hispanic population with second-generation Latinos–the U.S.-born children of immigrants– emerging as the largest component of that population. Given the very substantial differences in earnings, education, fluency in English, and attitudes between foreign-born and native-born Latinos, this shift has profound implications for many realms of public policy, and indeed for anyone seeking to understand the nature of demographic change in the United States.
Latinos in the U.S. labor force were slow to recover from the effects of the 2001 recession, lagging non-Hispanic whites in restoring employment growth and the unemployment rate to their pre-recession levels. Immigrants and young Latinos encountered particularly hard times but college-educated Hispanics experienced substantial improvements in employment levels. These are among the key findings of this report on the labor market experience of Latino workers since the economic slowdown began at the end of 2000.