US Hispanic Unemployment Rate Declines to 6.3%

The unemployment rate of Hispanics has slightly decreased as of last December, although they remain second in unemployment rate among major work groups.

Based on the recent statistics released by the labor department, the U.S. economy has grown at a solid rate, adding 292,000 jobs last month despite global trends of decreasing economic conditions. The U.S national unemployment rate, however, remained at five percent for the third straight month.

The statistics presented at The Wall Street Journal showed that Hispanics have a 6.3 percent unemployment rate with Hispanic men having lower unemployment rate than Hispanic women.

The work group comes behind black Americans who have the highest unemployment rate at 8.3 percent. White Americans, on the other hand, have an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent.

Moreover, among the reasons for unemployment, permanent layoff was the biggest factor which accounts to 36 percent. This was followed by re-entered labor force (31.1 percent), temporary layoff (11.8 percent), new entrants to labor force (10.8 percent), and Quit Job (10.3 percent).

The Wall Street Journal added that, as of December, the duration of unemployment for the median jobless worker was only 10.5 weeks which is the shortest period since 2008. It highlighted that, last 2010, a typical jobless worker took 25 weeks to be employed again.

Moreover, the statistics also revealed that those who have more education are less likely to be unemployed. As such, 2.5 percent of College graduates are jobless, a figure which is almost two percentage points lower than the unemployment rate of those who have not received schooling after high school.

According to the report by Fox News, the national labor participation rate or the percentage of the population that is working remains unchanged at 62.6 percent. The same goes for the Latinos labor participation which is steady at 65.6 percent.

Fox News emphasized that these are strong figures, considering that there has been a global economic meltdown rooting from China's slowing economy and dipping stock market which recently saw a seven percent crash.

The report stressed that a strong customer demand encouraged U.S. employers to continuously add jobs despite the economic crisis and the struggles of sectors such as manufacturing, and oil and gas drilling.

Fox News pointed that, if employers continue to hire people along with consistent wage increase, the U.S. consumer spending will receive a boost which in turn can help support economic growth even amid foreign economic struggles.

"The December report's box office number of 292,000 new jobs instantly set stocks climbing. The addition of a further 50,000 jobs to the preceding two months' figures may seem a mere footnote, but it is further evidence of the depth of the recovery. While the lack of movement in average earnings remains a puzzle, such sustained job growth and the US's step closer to full employment should soon start to fatten Americans' pay-packets," Marcus Bulius, trading director at MB Capital, told FTSE Global Markets