Latinas not equal in the workforce

Press Release

WASHINGTON, DC- On March 27, 2012, LCLAA convened leaders from the Latino, labor, women and civil rights community for the TRABAJADORAS Awards Luncheon to unveil an unprecedented report on Latinas.

“TRABAJADORAS:  Challenges and Conditions of Latina Workers in the United States,” is a crucial report that analyses the social and economic standing of Latina workers and the role that their gender, ethnicity and immigration status play in shaping the reality that they face in our workplaces and our communities. The report sheds light on the main sectors of our economy that rely on the labor of Latinas, mostly jobs that fail to offer wages that can help Latinas build economic security while noting that labor unions provide workers with the key to better jobs and the middle class as they help Latinas secure higher wages and safe, healthy and respectful workplaces.

 

KEY FINDINGS:

 

• 23.8 million: The number of women in the U.S. who identify themselves as Latinas.
• For Latinas, the unemployment rate more than doubled between 2007 and 2010, from 6.1% to 12.3%.
• 8.1 million: The number of Latinas in the U.S. labor force.
• At 52.7% Latinas have the lowest employment to population ratio.
• Latinas have one of the highest poverty rates of women in the labor force: 12.1% compared to 12.7% for black, 5.5% for white and 4.9% for Asian women.

• Latinas are over-represented in low-wage job sectors: 33.2% are concentrated in service, 31.7% in sales, office and administrative support, 24.1% in management, professional and related occupations, 9.3% work in production, transportation and material moving and 1.7% work in natural resources, construction and maintenance.
• Most Latinas in the service sector do not have a “good job” where they make at least $29,667 a year in median.
• The gender wage gap: Latina workers only make 60 cents for every dollar a white man earns.
• When race, ethnicity and gender are combined, research points to an increased rate of wage violations, where more women than men reported experiencing minimum wage violations.
• Stories of immigrant women indicate that male supervisors frequently use immigration status as leverage to force female employees to withstand sexual harassment and sexual violence.
• Educational attainment: more than one-third of Latinas have less than a high school education.
  • 64% of Latinas only have a high school education or less, 21% have some college or an Associate’s degree.
  • 11% have a Bachelor’s degree while only 4% have an advanced degree.
• Access to healthcare: Trabajadoras are more than twice as likely as non-Latina white women to lack access to health care.
• At 29.1%, Latinas are more than twice as likely to be uninsured than white non-Latino women (12.8%).
• In 2010, Latinas reported over 46,000 cases of job-related injuries, requiring a median of 7 days away from work in order to recover.
• Union benefits: Unions provide a pathway to success for Latina workers, granting them access to key benefits and the ability to negotiate for fair wages and safe workplace conditions.
  • On average, Latinas represented by a union earned $724 a week,  38 percent more than non-union Latinas who made $489 dollars in median weekly earnings.