The response of Latino immigrants to the Great Recession: Occupational and residential (im)mobility

Abstract

During the Great Recession in the US, there were distinct housing and labour markets that were particularly hard hit. This was primarily due to the fact that the housing industry had fueled much of the recent economic growth. This article takes advantage of the shock to the construction industry to investigate the responses of Latino immigrants in metropolitan areas that were most heavily concentrated with Latino immigrants in the construction industry. As expected, there were large declines in the proportion of the Latino immigrant population that was working in the construction industry during the recession. There were some shifts of employment in the industry after the recession, but the biggest change was in the number of unemployed. While declines in construction jobs did predict moving out of a metropolitan area, decline in the overall job market had a larger impact on mobility. Finally, we find evidence that those who moved out of the metropolitan area were less likely to be employed, although it is not possible to determine whether they would have been employed in their previous location.