Unemployment Rate Rises for Latinos

The Latino numbers mirrored those of the general population, which saw a rise in unemployment from 7.8 percent to 7.9 percent in December. The rate is calculated from a survey of households, and more people in that survey said they were unemployed.

But the U.S. job market showed recovery in the last month, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics report indicating that employers added 157,000 jobs in January, and hiring was much stronger at the end of last year than the government had previously estimated.

The uptick comes at a time when the U.S. job market is proving sturdier than expected at a time when the economy is under pressure from Washington gridlock and the threat of government spending cuts.

The employment report revealed a notable shift in the job market: More hiring by construction companies.

They added 28,000 jobs in January and nearly 100,000 over the past four months. Those job gains are consistent with a rebound in home construction and a broader recovery in housing.

Retailers added 33,000 positions. Health care gained 23,000 jobs. Manufacturers reported a small increase of 4,000. Restaurants and hotels added 17,000.

The upswing in those sectors arguably helped Latino employment, labor officials said, since those fields include a high number of Latino workers.

"The proportion of Latinos in those sectors is higher than other ethnic and racial groups, so when they do well, there will be a movement in Latino employment," said Abraham Mosisa, an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "But during the recession, they were hit the hardest - immigrants and minorities were hit harder than whites."

The overall unemployment rate remained below 10 percent for the third consecutive month. Latino unemployment was stuck above 10 percent for 44 months--more than three-and-a-half years--from Jan. 2009 to Sep. 2012.

And while the Latino unemployment rate has fallen more than three percentage points since peaking in Nov. 2010, it remains nearly five percentage points higher than the pre-recession level, according to labor statistics.

Some 66 percent of Latinos are in the labor force, they make up about 16 percent of overall U.S. workers.

The Labor Department's estimated job gains for the final two months of 2012 -- a period when the economy was being threatened by the fiscal cliff -- rose from 161,000 to 247,000 for November and from 155,000 to 196,000 for December.

The monthly job gains are derived from a separate survey of employers.

The hiring picture over the past two years also looked stronger after the department's annual revisions. The revisions showed that employers added an average of roughly 180,000 jobs a month in 2012 and 2011. That was up from previous estimates of about 150,000.

"The significantly stronger payroll gains tell us the economy has a lot more momentum than what we had thought," Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank, said in a research note.

Stocks surged immediately after trading began at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, an hour after the jobs report was released. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 130 points and briefly touched 14,000 for the first time in more than five years, before falling back.