A representative speaks to a job seeker at a job fair at Brunswick Community College in Bolivia, North Carolina, April 11, 2024.
Allison Joyce | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The unemployment rate for white Americans remained stable from April to May, bucking the trend for all other racial groups, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department.
The white unemployment rate remained at 3.5% last month, making the demographic the only group that did not see an increase in unemployment rates from April to May. This also contradicted the overall unemployment rate, which rose from 3.9% to 4%.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for black Americans rose from 5.6% to 6.1%. For Asian or Hispanic workers, it rose from 2.8% to 3.1% and from 4.8% to 5%.
“We obviously need to pay attention to what is happening to historically marginalized groups to ensure that the recovery is felt,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
But Gould isn’t particularly concerned yet about rising unemployment rates among certain demographic groups. “We don’t see any real deviation from trends there,” she added.
Gould found that the trend was slightly stronger for black men, whose unemployment rate rose from 5.2% to 6.4%, while for their female counterparts it rose from 5% to 5.2%. The economist attributed this increase to the volatility of the labor force, noting that the number has largely risen back to the previous level from the beginning of the year.
Among white workers, the labor force participation rate fell from 62.3% to 62.2%.
The overall labor force participation rate also fell from 62.7% to 62.5% and fell from 63.2% to 62.9% for Black Americans. However, the figure increased from 64.7% to 65.3% for Asian Americans, while it remained stable at 67.3% for Hispanic workers.
—CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report.
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2024-06-07 16:56:00
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