Riding the Storm Out: The Great Recession and Latino Population in North Carolina's Micropolitan Areas.

This paper examines the impact of the Great Recession on employment and Latino population growth in North Carolina's micropolitan areas. In the 1990s, these localities became "new Latino destinations". The impact of the most recent recession on Latino population growth in these smaller towns remains unclear. Most studies that examine the consequences of this crisis for Latino population trends offer national level generalizations or focus on metropolitan areas. These studies report a "flattening out" of the record growth rates reported in the last decade of the 20th century. Shifting the focus to micropolitan areas, this analysis uncovers two key findings. First, using data drawn from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and County Business Patterns, we find that micropolitan areas were hit harder by the recession than was the state or nation. These localities suffered extraordinary job losses in the two key sectors in which Latinos are typically concentrated: manufacturing in localities that depended heavily on that sector and construction in other localities. Despite these job losses, the Latino population more than doubled in these micropolitan areas from 2000 to 2010. These growth rates were lower than in the previous decade but outpaced the growth rate reported statewide as well as nationwide. This growth was particularly significant in those localities in which either or both the non-Hispanic white population or non-Hispanic black population declined. Taken together, these population trends further transformed the racial/ethnic landscape of micropolitan areas and solidified the significance of the Latino population in these localities, despite the recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]