Nearly 300,000 Fewer Jobs Created in First 8 Months of ‘25 Compared to ‘24
Job growth in industries with heavy Latino employment collapsed during the first eight months of the Trump administration compared to the first eight months of 2024, when Joe Biden was president, according to a new study by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF). Nearly 300,000 fewer jobs were created in industries with a high concentration of Latino workers in the period January to August 2025 than were created in the same stretch of 2024. That’s a dropoff of over a third, or 35%.
“Republican fiscal policies are hurting the whole country, but as usual, Latinos are taking a particularly hard hit,” said David Kass, ATF’s executive director. “President Trump and congressional Republicans gave large tax cuts to billionaires, cut health care and nutrition for workers and families, and instituted incomprehensible tariffs. It’s little wonder that Latino support for the Trump administration is collapsing along with the Latino job market as family finances are disrupted and businesses pull back investments in the face of uncertainty.”
In July, ATF released a report revealing that workers in Latino-heavy industries would on average lose $1,500 a year from the combination of GOP tax cuts, service cuts and tariff increases. The seven industries, ranging from construction to healthcare, each employed at least a million Latino workers who in turn made up at least 20% of the overall workforce. The anticipated economic losses were calculated by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
Since July, the economy has shown signs of weakness, especially in the job market. Over the same period, Latino support for Trump has collapsed.
Construction is the industry with the most Latino workers, and one of the two in which Latinos make up over 40% of the total workforce. Under the Biden administration in the first eight months of 2024, construction added 124,000 jobs; under Trump over the same period of 2025, the industry added only 9,000 jobs–a falloff of almost 93%. The transportation industry, whose workforce is over one-quarter Latino, added only 3,200 jobs in the first eight months of the Trump administration. Compared to the 79,200 jobs added in the same period under Biden in 2024, that’s a 96% decline.
METHODOLOGY: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics uses different industry classifications for its Current Population Survey–which reports Latino industry participation–and its monthly employment data. Best efforts were made to match up the two systems in order to determine the recent employment history in Latino-heavy industries.