Latinas facing a tough road to get back in the workforce
PHOENIX — Teresa Marez spent 14 years building a strong clientele base as a hairstylist in San Antonio. When her son, who is autistic, had to switch to virtual learning because of the pandemic, she quit her job to help him.
It’s been 10 months, and the clients are all gone.
Marez is one of many Latinas who have been out of work since last year. Latinas have left the workforce at rates higher than any other demographic and have had some of the highest unemployment rates throughout the pandemic, according to a report released Wednesday by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, a Latino-focused think tank.
That could spell trouble not just for a post-pandemic economic recovery but for the long-term stability of the country as baby boomers retire and women in general are feeling compelled to leave work. And women like Marez, who has used much of her savings, are missing out on years of economic gains.
Before the pandemic, Latinas were projected to increase their numbers in the workforce by nearly 26% from 2019 to 2029 — a higher rate than any other group, the report found. It’s unclear if or how that projection will now change.
Marez isn’t sure what she’s going to do next.
“If I did go back to doing hair, I would be starting from the beginning again, really,” she said. “I was kind of burned out anyway and I can’t see myself at like 45 years old starting from the beginning.”
The UCLA study found that Latinas experienced the highest unemployment rate — 20% — of any demographic in April 2020, right after all of the business
shutdowns began. By the end of 2020, when businesses were starting to reopen, Latinas and Black women still had nearly double the unemployment rate of their white counterparts, the study found.
Also troubling: the rate at which Latinas dropped from the workforce altogether, which the government usually considers to be the case when someone hasn’t actively looked for work in four weeks.
Participation in the labor force for Latinas age 25 to 54 fell from 71% pre-pandemic to just below 67% in May 2021, according to the latest available data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That translates to 465,000 fewer Latinas working or seeking work.
Kassandra Hernandez, a lead researcher on the UCLA report, said this is crucial to how the economy recovers from the pandemic.
“If we don’t recognize the complexities or the nuances of these narratives, of what’s happening with Latinas, we might actually be set back,” Hernandez said.
Simply put: The American workforce needs Latinas to fill the many jobs that are slowly starting to come
back, and those that will be left behind by retiring baby boomers.
But research has shown Latinas are more likely than all other U.S. mothers to stay home with children instead of work. They also tend to do much more work at home than the men in their lives, spending twice as much time on household activities and nearly three times more time caring for household members than Latinos.
Latinas are overrepresented in low-wage jobs in the hospitality and broader service industries, stifling their upward mobility.
Hernandez said women need access to child care, better pay and education to help them overcome disparities in career opportunities and the setbacks that the pandemic brought.
The pandemic forced many Latinas to leave work to care not just for their children but also for extended family — “the tios or abuelos or vecinos — you name it,” said Xochitl Oseguera, the vice president of MamasConPoder, the Spanish-language community that’s part of MomsRising, a grassroots organization that works to improve women’s economic security.