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Since California's jobless rate reached a fresh post-World War II high why do we need immigration reform?

California's jobless rate reached a fresh post-World War II high in July, climbing to 11.9%, a sobering reminder that though the nation's deep downturn may be nearing its end, the state's employment woes are far from over. Golden State employers cut their payrolls by 35,800 jobs in July, according to figures released Friday by the state Employment Development Department. That's a significant improvement over monthly losses that averaged 76,000 over the first half of the year. Still, July's numbers were worse than some analysts had expected, rising from 11.6% in June and led by declines in trade, construction and manufacturing. Even with the rise in unemployment here, however, a consensus is growing that the worst of the recession may be over. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke on Friday declared the economy to be "leveling out," and the National Assn. of Realtors reported a sharp rise in July home sales. Wall Street responded by pushing the Dow index to its highest point since November. Still, a robust recovery appears unlikely, and some regions of the country are expected to suffer fallout from the bursting of the housing bubble for years to come. That includes California, which is now tied with Oregon for the fourth-highest unemployment rate in the nation, behind Michigan, Rhode Island and Nevada. The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.4%, down from 9.5% in June. California's battered construction and housing industries, long pillars of the state economy, remain troubling sources of weakness. Over the last year, the state has lost 760,200 jobs, nearly 1 in 5 of them in construction. White-collar workers have likewise suffered from the housing crash as thousands of jobs in banking, mortgage processing and real estate sales have vanished. The number of new-home permits issued in July fell 47.4% from a year earlier, according to the Construction Industry Research Board. "We've disproportionately benefited from two sectors, construction and financial services," said Esmael Adibi, an economist at Chapman University. "The demise of these two sectors has hurt us disproportionately." That's had an outsize effect on California's 13.5 million Latinos, who are heavily concentrated in the building trades. In 2007, Latinos made up 47% of the construction workforce in the state, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In July, California's Latino unemployment rate hit 12.7%, dwarfing the white jobless rate of 9.5%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Black unemployment remains the highest in the state at 14.2%. But Latino joblessness has grown much faster. In July 2007 the Latino unemployment rate stood at just 5.9%, compared with 9.2% for blacks and 4.8% for whites. Last month, 805,000 California Latinos were jobless. That's up 127% over the last two years. The number of unemployed whites in the state grew 103% over the same period, while the number of out-of-work African Americans rose 66%. "You really begin to see desperate times for lots of Latino families throughout California," said Vince Vasquez, a senior policy analyst with the National University System Institute for Policy Research. East Los Angeles resident Robert Gonzales said he was struggling to support his three children after his job as an industrial painter disappeared a year ago when his employer moved to Ohio. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-caljobs22-2009aug22,0,6343107.story

Public Comments

1. Deport illegals and their families and watch the jobless rates fall.
2. beats me, but obama has all the answers
3. this is only the tip of the ice berg, in Arizona if a Latino is applying for a job after being laid off he or she is finding a very hostile attitude towards them. questionable legal status, questionable identification, and residency. the whole climate towards Latinos has changed dramatically mainly due to the crimes being committed by them here and those parades demanding rights for their illegal family members.
4. Why are you pointed out California? Last time I heard Mississippi was the poorest state.And its doesn't have that many immigrants.And the white race make up 62% of the Mississippi population.
5. Out sourcing jobs to third world countries. Email anyone you can, re this disgusting profits before people and profits before America the greed is obnoxious. That is why there are so few jobs. Please do not say you would not want the job anyway ...all levels are needed, all levels are out sourced.
6. California as well as the people who supported the illegal aliens are beginning to question the illegal aliens and sanctuary city process. I suspect it is to late though.
7. Recessions come and go. This is only temporary. US demographic trends indicate a serious shortage of younger workers in the decades to come because Americans are not having enough children. Immigration reform is something for the long term. Short term trends caused by a few greedy bankers do not matter in the long term. By 2015, unemployment in California will be below 4% again.
8. We don't! We need Government Reform!