Hispanics Will Fill 75% of New US Jobs Between 2020 and 2034

From 2020 to 2034, about 14 million new jobs will be created in the United States and 75 percent of them—approximately 11 million—will be filled by Hispanics.

In the nearer future, over the next five years, Hispanics are expected to fill 40 percent of all new jobs.

A wave of baby boomer (people born between 1946 and 1964) retirements, and a younger faster-growing Hispanic population are driving those numbers, according to a new report from the research group IHS Economics.

“People think Hispanics are going to take three of every four jobs but a lot of what’s going on is replacing a lot of retiring baby boomers,” said study author and IHS Global Insight economist James Gillula. “So, in terms of new entrants to the work force, there will be a lot more job opportunities than those 14 million because there are a lot of people that need to be replaced.”

Many of those job gains are likely to be in construction, health services, leisure and hospitality, and professional and business services, sectors that currently employ many Hispanics and will presumably continue to offer more job opportunities.

Hispanics now account for 16 percent of the U.S. labor force. By 2034, that number will have risen to 23 percent, according to the report.

Several major industrialized countries in Europe and Japan face a slowdown in labor force growth in the long term, but immigration could help offset those projected losses in the United States.

“I think an important underlying theme of the report is that immigration is important for continued U.S. economic growth,” Gillula said. “Given the dynamics of the aging of the non-Hispanic population, in order to have continuing economic growth at the levels we’ve experienced, we need some level of continuing immigration to add to the labor force growth.”

Continuing to attract immigrants doesn’t appear to be a problem. While the debate over the issue continues–Republican lawmakers are trying to block President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration–the United States remains the destination of choice for 80 percent of all migrants from 10 Latin American countries, according to the report.

And they are likely searching for greater economic opportunity and the improved quality of life that these future new jobs could provide.