Attendees get information about jobs in California during a job fair at the City Career Fair on June 5, 2024 in Sacramento, California.
David Paul Morris | David Paul Morris Bloomberg | Getty Images
Data released Friday showed unemployment among black workers fell in August by the Department of Labor.
The unemployment rate among black workers fell to 6.1% in August from 6.3% the previous month. This trend is consistent with the country’s overall unemployment rate, which fell to 4.2% in August from July.
On the other hand, the unemployment rate for white workers held steady at 3.8%. Unemployment rates also rose among Asian and Hispanic workers. The former increased from 3.7% to 4.1%. For the latter, it climbed from 5.3% to 5.5%.
The unemployment rate for black men has dropped significantly month over month, from 6.6% to 5.9%. On the other hand, black women’s unemployment rate held steady at 5.5%.
The Hispanic female unemployment rate fell from 5.4% to 5%, while the male unemployment rate climbed from 4.4% to 4.8%. The unemployment rate for white men also increased from 3.5% to 3.6%, while the unemployment rate for white women remained unchanged at 3.4%.
Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said a closer look at the employment-to-population ratio of prime-age female workers (that is, women aged 25 to 54) provides a very optimistic view of the labor market.
“The employment-to-population ratio for prime-age women in the workforce is still at its highest level in a quarter-century,” she told CNBC. “Even if other measures are still softening a little bit, this is still very strong.”
“Now that we are approaching full employment, it makes sense that we would see some softening,” Gould added.
The labor force participation rate (the percentage of the population that is employed or actively looking for work) remained unchanged at 62.7% last month.
Among white workers, the share leveled off, while among black workers it fell from 63.2% to 62.7%. Among Asian workers, the participation rate fell from 65.7% to 65.4%, while among Latino workers, the participation rate increased from 67.3% to 67.8%.
—CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report.
Correction: The black female unemployment rate held steady at 5.5%. A previous version incorrectly stated the percentage.
