November 11, 2008

Black Unemployment Nearly Double White Rate

One of the reasons that Barack Obama won the election this year is the continued inability of the economy to produce jobs. The nation’s unemployment rate climbed to 6.5 percent last month. But the Black unemployment rate remained substantially higher at 11.1 percent, nearly double the rate for whites [SOURCE].

The 6.5 percent overall rate marked a 14-year high in joblessness and was creating a huge impact on ordinary Americans as 240,000 jobs were cut in October, far worse than economists expected.

In total, 1.2 millions jobs were lost this year, making October the tenth consecutive month in which the economy reported job losses. But Blacks have been particularly hard hit by the troubled economy.

African Americans posted the highest unemployment rate of any racial or ethnic group in the survey. The October unemployment rate, not seasonally adjusted, for whites was 5.9 percent, for Hispanics 8.8 percent and for Asians 3.8 percent, but for Blacks it was 11.1 percent.


4 comments:

C Samuels Jr said...

This is not surprising but I believe the rate is higher for both groups. The unemployment rate only takes in account the people collecting unemployment and not those who have exhausted their benefits and are still looking for work. When I was out of work in 2005-2006, my unemployment benefits ran out 4 months before I was able to find a job. So according to the State of Michigan, I was not counted in the unemployment stats since I no longer collected unemployment but was still without a job for 4 months past that date. The real rate should be 5 - 20 points higher and in states like Michigan and the rust belt, the rate could be almost 25 point higher.

Unknown said...

Cliff - That is a very scary thing to think that upwards of 1-out-of-4 Americans in Michigan are unemployed. That begins to approach 'depression' like status...

Raymond said...

A few job sites seem appropriate right about now -

www.linkedin.com (professional networking)
www.indeed.com (aggregated listings)
www.realmatch.com (matches jobs based on your skills)

Good look to those looking for work!

Unknown said...

Ray - Very cool. Thank you for taking time to share these links and your uplifting message to those villagers in the job market...