The Latino unemployment rate dropped in March amid another blowout report, which saw a gain of 303,000 jobs and exceeded all expectations.
Concretely, figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the Latino unemployment rate decreased to 4.5%, a large improvement compared to February's 5%.
The figure is higher than the overall unemployment rate, which clocked in at 3.8%. It's also higher than the rate for all adult men (3.3%) and women (3.6%), as well as Whites (3.4%) and Asians (2.5%), but lower than Blacks (6.4%).
However, the participation rate dropped slightly from the past month, going from 67.1% to 66.8%. Almost four in five men who are 20 years of age and older are employed at the moment, its unemployment rate being lower than the rest of the demographic at 3.7%. Women, in turn, had a 61.1% participation rate and an unemployment rate of 4.5%.
The jobs report exceeded expectations from most economist surveyed by the major outlets, with those interviewed by Bloomberg estimating a 214,000 gain. The growth was led mainly by the health care and construction sectors, as well as leisure and hospitality, which is now above the pre-pandemic levels.
Increased immigration has been greatly credited with boosting the labor market without overheating or stoking inflation. According to a recent Bloomberg report, this is because of a concept known as neutral payrolls growth, that is, how fast they can grow without tightening and increasing wage pressures, gets more leeway with immigration.
Concretely, the figure is now between 160,000 and 265,000 jobs a month. It's significantly higher than the roughly 100,000 that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell set in 2022 and within the margin for the average monthly gains of 2023, 251,000.
"Migrants have increased labor supply and typically fill lower-paying jobs, keeping aggregate wage measures tame," Bloomberg added.
Large companies have also credited immigration with boosting the economy in general. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. recently presented its updated predictions for economic and employment growth in the United States this year, adjusting for an accelerated rate of immigration.
The company now forecasts a 2.4% year-on-year increase for US gross domestic product in the fourth quarter, a 0.3 percentage-point improvement compared to the previous estimate.
"One likely reason why GDP growth was stronger in 2023 is that immigration ran well above the recent historical average, boosting the size of the labor force and potential GDP," Goldman economist Ronnie Walker wrote in a note. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) more than doubled its estimate of immigration for last year to 3.3 million people and expects a similar amount in 2024.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had delivered a similar view in February when the nonpartisan agency announced that immigration is poised to inject a staggering $7 trillion into the gross domestic product over the next decade. This boost would be driven by the push newcomers are giving to the labor force and consumer spending.
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