Black unemployment about to fall below 10 percent

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Three consecutive months of seeing the economy adding more than 25,000 jobs has economists optimistic that the black unemployment rateĀ could dip below 10 percent by mid-2015. Particularly upbeat about marketplace trend isĀ Valerie Wilson, an economist and director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (PREE) at Economic Policy Institute.
When Wilson analyzed those who are holding onto jobs as well as those who are actively looking, sheĀ found that blacks had the biggest increase in both measures from December 2013 to December 2014.
ā€œIf the same trends in the labor force participation rateĀ and the decline in the unemployment rate that we saw in 2014 continue into 2015, the Black unemployment rate should get down to the single digits by the middle of this year,ā€ Wilson said.
The black unemployment rate remains more than double of their white counterparts, showing a 10.4 percent clip in December, compared to 4.8 percent, according to the latest jobs report by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Black men over 20 years old ticked down from 11.2 percent to 11 percent in December while the unemployment rate for white men fell from 4.6 to 4.4 percent over that period.
The situation is more positive for black women. Unemployment for African American females over 20 years-old slid from 9.5 percent in November to 8.2 percent in December. Meanwhile, white women unemployment rate inch down from 4.5 percent to 4.4 percent during the same period.
Where did the jobs come from? According to the Labor Department, the increases came from theĀ professional and business services, construction, food services and drinking places, health care, and manufacturing in December.
Wilson believes this trend will continue at least into the near future.
ā€œThe African American workforce is benefiting from the job growth that is taking place right now and the longer that continues, the better itā€™s going to be for those communities,” Wilson told the Associated Press.
 

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