Hispanics, Asians see strongest job growth Job opportunities for Hispanics and Asians have been recovering at a faster pace than those for their white and black counterparts. While workers from all racial groups have seen job gains since the economy bottomed out in 2009, Hispanics and Asians are edging ahead, according to a new study released Wednesday by the Pew Hispanic Center titled The Demographics of the Jobs Recovery. "Their employment levels are higher now than just before the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, a milestone not yet reached by white and black workers," the report stated. The percentage change in employment for Asians and Hispanics, since the economy bottomed out, rose by 6.9 percent and 6.5 percent respectively. This compares to a decline of 7 percent for blacks during the same time period and a drop of 5.9 percent for whites. But don't get too happy or too jealous yet. No one group is going employment gangbusters even though the recovery has supposedly kicked in. Although jobs growth for Hispanics and Asians was more rapid than for other groups, it merely kept pace with the growth in their working-age (ages 16 and older) populations. The slower rate of jobs growth for whites and blacks reflects the relatively slow growth in their populations," Pew reported. Thus, the share of each group's population that is employed, the employment rate, has barely risen since the end of the recession. Aside from race, immigrants and men fared better than natives and women. Immigrants, made up mainly of Hispanics and Asians, saw a 5.2 percent recovery in jobs since 2009, compared to 1.8 percent for U.S. born workers. And after outpacing men in the recession when it came to employment opportunities, women are not falling behind the guys. Men saw a 3.5 percent rate of growth, while women experienced a dismal 0.9 percent uptick. As for where people got jobs, three industries created the most growth for all races: professional business services; wholesale and retail; and manufacturing. The leading source of jobs increases for Hispanics in particular were the eating, drinking and lodging services sector, creating an increase of 326,000 for this group. Hispanics also saw a 1 percent uptick in their share of federal government gigs from fiscal year 2009 to fiscal year 2010, according to a study by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released Wednesday. Overall, the report found, there were nearly 3 million people working for the federal government during fiscal year 2010, 56 percent male and 44 percent female. Here's the breakdown on the share of the federal jobs by race: 65.4 percent were white. 17.9 percent were black or African American. 8.9 percent were Hispanic or Latino. 5.9 percent were Asian. 1.6 percent were American Indian or Alaska Native. 0.08 percent were persons of two or more races. 0.04 percent were Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.