Black Unemployment Rate Was Flat in 2011

Joblessness dropped for black men, but it climbed for black women

By Frederick H. Lowe

The unemployment rate for black workers remained the same throughout 2011, although it dropped for white and Hispanic workers as the nation's businesses created more than 1.5 million new jobs, according to a study published by the University of California, Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.

In January 2011, the jobless rate for African Americans ages 16 to 64 was 15.7 percent and by December 2011, unemployment in the black community was almost identical at 15.8 percent, the Center for Labor Research and Education wrote in its study, "Annual  Report: Black Employment  and Unemployment  in 2011."

In contrast, the unemployment rate among whites was 8.1 percent in January 2011, but by December 2011, their jobless rate had fallen to 7.5 percent, the study reported.  It was the same scenario for Hispanics.  During 2011's first month, the unemployment rate among Latinos was 12 percent, but by the end of end of the year, their jobless rate had dropped to 11percent.

Whites and Hispanics were able to take full advantage of the more than 1.6 million jobs created last year, including the more than 100,000 that opened up each month during 2011's second half, the study noted.

Although the unemployment rate among black men dropped between January 2011 and December, African-American men still suffered from the highest overall jobless rate.  In January 2011, the unemployment rate for black men was 17.9 percent and in December, it was 17.1 percent.  This compares with an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent for white men in January 2011 and a 7.6 percent unemployment rate in December.

Joblessness among black women, however, rose by the end of 2011. In January, the unemployment rate was 13.8 percent, but by December it had risen to 14.6 percent. In contrast, the unemployment rate among white women was 7.5 percent in January 2011 and 7.2 percent in December 2011.

The report concluded that in December 2011, the black unemployment rate was higher than the jobless rate in June 2009, when the recession officially ended.

The report does not detail why African Americans continue to experience high unemployment while whites and Hispanics are seeing their jobless rates decline.

Steven Pitts, a Ph.D. labor policy specialist and author of the annual report and an earlier study published in April, found that the single most important source of employment for African Americans is the public sector.

“From 2008 to 2010, 21.2 percent of all black workers were public employees, compared with 16.3 percent of non-black employees,” Pitts wrote in a research paper, “Black Workers and the Private Sector.”

"Unfortunately, the state and local governments have laid off 429,000 workers since January 2009," Pitts wrote.