Black workers bear the brunt of a stagnant U.S. job market
In Minnesota, the Black unemployment rate is more than double the rate for white residents.
By Emma Nelson (The Minnesota Star Tribune).
As the U.S. labor market falters, Black people are shouldering the burden more than any other American demographic.
The Black unemployment rate is rising nationwide, and in Minnesota it has more than doubled from last year’s low.
Hundreds of thousands of Black women have lost or left jobs, making headlines as government layoffs and a retreat from diversity, equity and inclusion efforts take a nationwide toll.
These widespread job losses, which could portend a greater downturn, are forcing Black workers into an unfriendly market where hiring has come to a near standstill and long-term unemployment is on the rise.
“There’s concern that anyone involuntarily separating [from the workforce] at this point, for whatever reason, is potentially teed up to have a longer, harder road back to employment,” said Abigail Wozniak, vice president and director of the Minneapolis Fed’s Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute.
While the overall U.S. unemployment rate has hovered around 4% this year, the Black unemployment rate reached 7.5% in August, the most recent month of available data.
In Minnesota, the unemployment rate for Black residents was 7.7% in August, up from 5.2% the year before. Earlier in 2024, that number fell in line with the rest of the state at 3% — the level where white Minnesotans remain.
Erica Swain, 41, lost her job in mass layoffs due to federal funding cuts at the Minnesota Department of Health in April. The Woodbury resident said she and her husband, who is working two jobs, want to stay in Minnesota to continue services for their daughter, who has autism.
But it’s been hard to find any job, much less something in the public sector, where Swain has spent her career.
“I’ve been out of work maybe once or twice but never for this long,” she said Friday at a job fair for Black women in south Minneapolis. “It does feel different.”
The job fair, organized by former Star Tribune contributing columnist Sheletta Brundidge, drew more than 200 women and employers from local government, banking, health care and other industries.