A jobseeker holds flyers during the New York Public Library’s annual Bronx Job Fair & Expo at the the Bronx Library Center in the Bronx borough of New York, on Sept. 6, 2024.
Yuki Iwamura | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The unemployment rate fell for Black women in December, following an alarming increase in the figure for November.
Overall, nonfarm payrolls grew much more than expected in December, rising 256,000 in the month and topping economists’ prediction for a gain of 155,000, per Dow Jones. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1% in a sign of a resilient labor market. The data fueled the belief that the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates much less than anticipated this year.
For Black women, the unemployment rate dropped to 5.4% in December. That is down from 5.9% in November, when the jobless rate rose nearly a percentage point for the cohort. The labor force participation rate, which tracks the population employed or seeking work, inched up to 62.4%.
Among Black workers overall, the unemployment rate also declined in December, slipping to 6.1%. That compares to a rate of 6.4% in November and 5.7% in October.
“There were some concerns about the Black unemployment rate going up,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, referring to November’s uptick. “It’s still significantly higher than for other groups โ and that’s still a concern โ but nothing in this report jumps out as particularly problematic.”
Black men also made strides, with the jobless rate declining to 5.6% in December from 6% a month earlier. The labor force participation rate for the cohort inched lower to 68.2% last month from 68.7%.
Hispanic men also saw their unemployment rate improve in December, ticking down to 4% from 4.4% as the labor force participation improved.
Though the unemployment rate among Hispanic women inched up to 5.3% last month from 5.2%, Gould noted that this shift is within the margin of error. “There’s a lot of volatility with the data,” she said. “I would say that things mostly held steady.”
By comparison, the jobless rate fell to 3.6% in December among white workers overall. That’s down from 3.8%. Among white men, the unemployment rate slipped to 3.3% last month from 3.5%, but the figure held steady at 3.4% for white women.
