“They can call me and say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to come in tomorrow and work,’ ” said Francisco, 36, who lives in Apartment 3D with his wife and two other couples, and prepares food at a nearby deli. “There’s nothing I can do. I have to go work.”

Across the country, immigrants in general are more likely to be employed than the American-born. They tend to be more willing to move in pursuit of jobs and to take any job they can find, especially if they lack access to unemployment benefits. But Mexicans in New York still stand out in employment statistics, not only in the city but also in the nation.

About 75 percent of all Mexicans in the city between ages 16 and 65 are in the civilian labor force  either working or looking for work  according to calculations by the sociology department at Queens College for The New York Times, based on 2008 census data. Of those, about 96 percent have jobs. Among Mexicans nationwide, that figure is 94 percent.

The employment rate just for New York’s working-age Mexican men is even higher: 97 percent. Only Italians have a higher rate of employed men  98 percent  though some analysts believe that the census underestimates employment rates for populations with high numbers of illegal immigrants, like Mexicans, because those without papers fear revealing their employment status.

A major reason the job rates for Mexican New Yorkers are so high is the disproportionate number of men and younger people among them, said Laird W. Bergad, director of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

About three of every five Mexican immigrants of working age in the city are men, according to the census data, and more than four of every five Mexican immigrants are in their mid-teens to mid-40s. Those numbers are smaller for Mexicans nationwide  in part, experts say, because the Mexican population in the American Southwest, where Mexican immigrants are concentrated in their greatest numbers, is more established.