According to a new report released by the Department of Labor, unemployment among African-American workers rose to its highest levels in June, just as the overall unemployment rate fell from 3.7% in May to 3.6% last month.
The entity explained that Job loss among African Americans accounted for 90% in April and rose 6% last month, compared to the unemployment rate for whites which fell to 3.1%.
For Carmen Sanchez Cumming, a researcher at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, “if the level of employment of African-American workers has decreased significantly over the last three months, then that is a red flag.”he told CNBC.
In the last 3 months overall employment for African Americans is down just 3% And studies show that these workers are more likely to be laid off in the midst of a shaky economy. William Rodgers, director of the St. Louis Fed’s Institute for Economic Equity, noted that “If conditions continue to weaken, or even accelerate, the gains made by African-American workers and other vulnerable groups could decline rapidly,” he told Bloomberg.
The number of unemployed in the United States has increased since April reaching 300,000 and African-American workers account for 267,000 lost jobs To this figure are added other vulnerable groups such as Latinos, who increased their unemployment in June to 4.3% compared to 4% in May, and Asians to 3.2%.
The Department of Labor also detailed the unemployment rates in the month of June in terms of gender: men were 3.4% and women 3.1%.
In this sense, Sanchez explained that having higher unemployment sends a clear signal that companies are once again reaching the levels of hiring that were before, during and after the pandemic.
This Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that for the month of June the economy in the United States added some 209,000 jobs, the figure is positioned as the lowest since 2020 and this year when in the month of May added 339,000 jobs.
The economist Dave Gilbertson commented on the matter, indicating that “the US labor market moderated in June, as new job creation slowed, a step towards the much-sought-after soft landing in the economy,” he said while mentioning that “the job market is holding up very well, but it’s not rising.”
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Source: La Opinion
