Latinos are experiencing bigger job gains than other demographic groups.

While they make up only 15 percent of the country’s work force, Latinos have racked up half the employment gains posted since the economy began adding jobs in early 2010, Labor Department data showed.

So far, Latinos are the only demographic group whose employment numbers have returned to prerecession levels. The latest Latino jobless rate of 10.5 percent remains higher than the overall rate of 8.3 percent for the nation and 7.4 percent for whites, partly reflecting their large immigrant population (foreign-born U.S. workers tend to have higher unemployment because of a variety of factors) as well as education and skill levels.

The construction industry remains weak, but other sectors in which Latinos have a relatively large share of jobs — hotels, food services, health care and manufacturing, for example — are seeing more robust job growth.

Read more at The Register-Guard.