A job seeker holds flyers during the New York Public Library’s annual Bronx Job Fair & Expo at the Bronx Library Center in the Bronx borough of New York, U.S., Friday, September 6, 2024.
Yuki Iwamura | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The unemployment rate for white Americans increased slightly in October, according to data released Friday. by the Ministry of Labor.
In October, white Americans saw their unemployment rate rise to 3.8%, up from 3.6% the month before. This trend has held up against the country’s overall unemployment rate, which remained stable at 4.1% in October from September, as well as for other demographic groups.
Unemployment rates for black and Hispanic workers remained unchanged last month, at 5.7% and 5.1%, respectively. Asian Americans saw their unemployment rate drop from 4.1% to 3.9%.
In contrast, unemployment rates for white men and women increased slightly in October. Among men, it increased from 3.4% to 3.5%. For women, it went from 3.1% to 3.3%.
While Hispanic women saw their unemployment rate rise from 4.8% to 5.2%, the unemployment rate for their male counterparts fell from 4.1% to 4.0%. The unemployment rate also fell for black women, from 5.3% to 4.9%, while it rose to 5.7% from 5.1% for black men.
For Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, this jump reflects the distortion and volatility of monthly data, especially since the unemployment rate for black men fell to 5.1% in September from 5, 9% in August.
“I think the big increase we saw in black male unemployment in October was really just a renormalization after the large and unusual drop in September,” she told CNBC.
Shierholz added that October unemployment figures were also unusually affected by hurricanes and strikes, making it even more difficult to compare this data.
“You should never focus on one month’s data, and that’s more true than ever right now because this month’s data has been so distorted by these unusual temporary factors,” he said. she declared.
In October, the overall labor force participation rate – the percentage of the population employed or actively seeking work – fell to 62.6% in October, from 62.7% in September.
Among white workers, the labor force participation rate also fell to 62.2% in October from 62.4% the previous month, while it declined to 66.9% from 67.4% for Hispanic workers. Among Asian workers, participation increased to 65.5% in October from 65.3% in September, while it remained steady for Black Americans at 62.9%.
— CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report.
