Hispanics lifting North Carolina economy

The Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times is reporting today that Hispanic filled about 1/3 of all jobs created in North Carolina over the last 10 years. Further, the article says, the jobs they are increasingly filling are white collar, which is directly challenging some commonly held beliefs (my people call them stereotypes) about the state’s fastest growing minority.

Hispanics were employed in almost as many administrative and office jobs as in farming, forestry and fishing jobs, according to the study conducted by the University of North Carolina.

This is telling ...

"Hispanics living in the Asheville metropolitan area spent $214.5 million in 2004, creating 2,300 jobs and $100,095 in state and local taxes. In Buncombe County, Hispanic purchasing power totaled more than $122 million.

"But some of this money leaks out of the counties because local businesses don’t provide the services Hispanics need, researchers said. An estimated $12.5 million left Henderson County in 2004 because Hispanics went elsewhere to find the products and services they wanted."