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Although the unemployment rate in the US was at a record low in December, there are several sectors of the population that they have not been able to fully recover since the crisis generated by the pandemic: Latina and African-American women.
In the month of December the unemployment rate was 3.5%, but that same figure was 5.5% among African-American and Latina women age 20 or older, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In February 2020, the rate was 4.8%, the month before the COVID-19 lockdown measures rocked the US economy.
On the other hand, for Latino men, unemployment rose 0.4 percentage points from 4% last month, higher than the unemployment rate of 3.1% in February 2020.
However, for people belonging to other demographic groups, unemployment is less than or the same now as it was before the pandemic: white women age 20 and older had a 2.8% rate in December. The unemployment rate was around 2.5% for Asians and 3% for whites.
Why the unemployment rate is higher for some
One of the main reasons why Black and Latina women are bearing the brunt of unemployment has to do with occupational segregation that crowds people of color into low-paying jobs and women’s caregiving responsibilities within families.
In this regard, Kate Bahn, chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, noted that black women were in a position to be lthe main caregivers of the families while they worked in sectors that were the most affected by the pandemic, according to a report from CNN.
In addition, he noted that the retail, hospitality and healthcare sectors were disproportionately affected by job loss and occupational risk. It is fair in these areas where most African Americans and Latinas work.
Leisure and hospitality lost more than 8.2 million jobs at the start of the pandemic, almost half of the sector’s total employment in February 2020. Over the past two years, those jobs have returned, but the sector is still almost 5.5% below previous levelsaccording to BLS data.
In addition, according to experts, the movements that the Fed is making to mitigate inflation directly affect marginalized workers.
Latino and black workers too confront structural racism and implicit bias.
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