A sign for a healthcare career fair at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, North Carolina, on February 28, 2023.
Allison Joyce | Bloomberg |
According to data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate among Asian Americans fell from June to July, bucking a general trend.
The unemployment rate among Asian Americans fell to 3.7% in July from 4.1% the previous month. This result contradicted the overall unemployment rate, which rose to 4.3% last month from 4.1% in June.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for white Americans rose to 3.8% in July, up from 3.5% the previous month. For Hispanics, that number climbed to 5.3% last month, up from 4.9% in June. For black workers, the unemployment rate remained stable at 6.3%.
Looking at the gender gap, the unemployment rate fell among black women, whose unemployment rate fell to 5.5% in July, compared to 5.7% the previous month. For black men, that number rose to 6.6% last month, compared to 6.1% in June.
The unemployment rate rose to 3.5% in July for white men from 3.2%, while for white women it rose to 3.4% from 3.1% last month. For Hispanic men, the rate rose to 4.4% from 4.2% last month, and for Hispanic women it jumped to 5.4% from 4.5% in July.
Information on unemployment rates among Asian workers by gender was not readily available.
But Elise Gould, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, stressed that these numbers included a great deal of volatility – especially among smaller population groups – and warned against reading too much into the trends.
In fact, Gould stressed that while the overall unemployment rate rose last month, the labor market for the prime-age 25- to 54-year-old group is still strong. The employment rate for this age group was 80.9 percent in July, the economist said. Gould added that the number of female workers in this group continues to recover.
“More people have returned to the workforce. Many of them have not found work, and that's why the unemployment rate has gone up,” Gould said in an interview with CNBC. “But if you look at the other side, things are definitely better.”
Last month, the overall labor force participation rate rose to 62.7% in July, up from 62.6% in the previous month. This figure indicates the percentage of the population that is either currently employed or actively seeking employment.
For white workers, the labor force participation rate rose slightly last month to 62.3 percent, compared to 62.2 percent in June. For black workers, the rate rose to 63.2 percent in July, compared to 62.7 percent the previous month.
The labor force participation rate among Hispanics was 67.3% in July, slightly below the previous month's figure of 67.5%. Among Asians, the labor force participation rate was 65.7% last month, compared to 65.9% in June.
— CNBC's Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report.
Comments are closed.