Increasing Job Quantity Without Improving Job Quality Won’t Fix Rising Latino Unemployment

With July unemployment at 9.4% and disproportionate joblessness between minorities and their White counterparts, many Americans expect new jobs to be the answer to the nation’s unemployment problem.

“With Black unemployment at nearly 15% and Latino unemployment close to 13%, the focus is on getting people back to work. But as we take steps to solve the unemployment problem, we must make sure job quality is front and center in those efforts,” said Janet Murguía, President and CEO of NCLR (National Council of La Raza), the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.

In time for Labor Day next month, NCLR will release a groundbreaking report on Latino workers and job quality. This analysis, which is the first of its kind, will provide an in-depth look at the erosion of worker protections among Latinos and low-wage workers and recommend policy solutions to make work rewarding and safe for everyone.

“How Latino workers emerge from this recession is critical to our nation’s future prosperity. Allowing substandard wages and benefits and the highest on-the-job fatality rates to persist would be an offense to our community’s hard work and an unstable foundation on which to build an economic recovery,” said Murguía.

“The road ahead is still long and steep, but the fact that job losses are slowing should put some spring in workers’ steps as they go about their jobs or look for employment,” said David Madland, Director of the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress. “To get out of deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression, we need to create many more quality jobs and ensure that those jobs provide a path to the middle class.”

For more information, please visit www.nclr.org.”

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