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Posts Tagged ‘work’

Majority of Latino Seniors Still Working

10:58 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Labor| Lifestyle| society · Comments Off

16 Jun 2009

senior-citizen-1 The vision many of us have of abuelito playing cards with his buddies or abuelita at home looking after grandkids has officially been disproven. A new study shows that the majority of U.S. Latinos over 50 are doing anything but lazing around the casa: they are still part of the workforce.

Seventy percent of U.S. Hispanics over the age of 50 are in the work force according to the report “Hispanic Workers 50 Plus” presented at the conference “Diversity and Aging in the 21st Century: The Power of Inclusion,” organized by AARP. Seventy six percent of them are immigrants and 62 percent are U.S.-born. Very few of these workers have health benefits. They also tend to have few absences from work. On average, these workers earn $30,357 per year, less than their white and African American counterparts, who earn an average of $50,595 and $36.429 respectively.

Very interesting statistics. If you’re into this sort of thing (I am), check out the full report here. It provides datapoints on a variety of topics, such as the education and health of older Latino workers.

Via / New America Media

Uruguaya Sues Boss Because She Doesn’t Have Any Work to Do

11:11 am By Maegan La Mala · Bizarro| Justice| Labor| Uruguay · 1 Comment

18 Aug 2008

Has lawsuit abuse spread to Latin America as well? An Uruguyan woman is suing her employer because she has no work to do. Spain’s 20 Minutos reports that a city government worker in Rio Negro, Uruguay, Emilia Colman, spends her entire day doing nothing except “looking at the ceiling” from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Colman claims she’s asked her boss to give her work but her pleas have gone unanswered, so she’s suing her employer for the equivalent of 25,000 euros for “morale damage”. She is also asking for a 3,000 euro per year raise.

While on the surface this might sound silly, it seems that Emilia might have been getting the boot from her employer in a roundabout way. There are many cases where an employer has made working conditions so miserable that the employee has no choice but to leave (remember Milton from Office Space?). And that’s what Colman believes is happening here. She’s been working for the city since 1999, and 3 years ago they changed her from one area to another. First she lost her office, then she lost her computer. Now she has nothing to do.

Nothing to do without a computer is brutal. As my office worker friends can attest to, having nothing to do at work can be fun. As long as you have the Internet.

Via / 20 Minutos

Mortgage Fallout Affects Immigrant Workers

2:30 pm By Maegan La Mala · Immigration| Labor| mexico| society · Comments Off

9 Jun 2008

While the mortgage fallout has some having to give up their homes, it has others having to give up their jobs. An overwhelming number of Latino immigrant workers labor in the construction field, and given the decrease in the number of new construction going up, jobs are disappearing. A new study by the Pew Hispanic Center shows that immigrants are suffering the effects of the country’s ailing economy as much — or more — than everyone else:

The analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center shows the unemployment rate for Latino immigrants was 7.5 percent in the first three months of this year, compared with 6.9 percent among Latinos born in the United States. During the same period in 2007, the rates were 5.5 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.

Latinos lost nearly 250,000 jobs over the past year because of the recent slump in the construction sector, the report states.

For several years, construction was a mainstay of job growth for Latino workers, especially immigrants.

“Having become somewhat dependent on this industry, (Latino workers) were more vulnerable to the downturn,” said Rakesh Kochhar, Pew’s associate director for research.

Mexican immigrants were the hardest-hit group, with their unemployment rate jumping from 5.5 percent last year to 8.4 percent, according to the report issued last week.

I wonder what the long term of effects of this will be. Immigrants — for instance Mexican immigrants — will have a hard time returning to Mexico given the sky high inflation and unemployment rates there. But then again, if things continue as they are here, the situation will become unsustainable on this side of the border as well. Will they stay or will they go?

Via / The Sun

Mexico, One of the Hardest Working Countries

11:46 am By Maegan La Mala · Labor| Latin America| mexico| society · Comments Off

28 May 2008

While Lou Dobbs might not want to admit it, a recent article in Forbes magazine says that Mexicans are among the hardest working populations in the world. Mexico ranks number 7 in the top 10 most hardworking countries, but that obviously doesn’t mean that it is getting rich from all that labor. In fact, it ranks as the country that works the hardest but makes less money.

The U.S. ranked number 9 on the list, while the number one and two countries were South Korea and Greece, respectively.

Via / VivirMexico

Image via bengarland on Flickr

Study: Foreign-born Latinos making higher wages

6:36 pm By Maegan La Mala · Immigration| Labor · Comments Off

22 Aug 2007

The Pew Hispanic Center announced today the results of a new analysis of Census Bureau data which shows that foreign-born Latinos moved up from the lower end of the spectrum and closer to the middle with regard to wages in the period from 1995-2005:

Foreign-born Latino workers made notable progress between 1995 and 2005 when ranked by hourly wage. The proportion of foreign-born Latino workers in the lowest quintile of the wage distribution decreased to 36% from 42% while many workers moved into the middle quintiles, according to a new analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center.
Newly arrived Hispanic workers also were much less likely to be low-wage earners in 2005 than in 1995, in part because they were older, better educated and more likely to be employed in construction than in agriculture. Yet despite the clear movement into the middle range of the wage distribution, many foreign-born Latinos remain low-wage earners. Even though the share of Latino workers at the low end decreased, in absolute numbers this population grew by 1.2 million between 1995 and 2005.

The Pew analysis also found that as Latinos moved out of the low end into the middles, many foreign-born Asians moved into the high end of the wage earning scale.

Via / Pew Hispanic Center

New Study Shows Latinos and Whites Working in Two Separate Worlds

5:52 pm By Maegan La Mala · Labor · Comments Off

15 Dec 2005

The Pew Hispanic Center released a report yesterday that shows the gap between Latino workers and White workers is widening. Latinos continue to be overrepresented in jobs paying lower wages and jobs with lower educational requirements such as jobs in the service and construction industries despite the fact that the study looked at a ten year time period which has been touted as having the “largest economic expansion in recent U.S. history”. The representation of Latinos in management and other professional areas actually declined from 1990 to 2000. Most interestingly, citizenship did not seem to be a huge factor with both Mexicans and Puerto Ricans (who are all citizens of the United States) lagging the furthest behind whites.

Via / Pew Hispanic Center

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