Posted on 05/24/2017 6:10:53 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The Class of 2017 is facing the strongest labor market in nearly 10 years. According to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Rockefeller Foundation, the unemployment rate for recent graduates is at its lowest rate since October 2008. This has led some to suggest that this nation has finally emerged from the ravages of the Great Recession.
However, this may be a matter of perspective. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2016 Household Data Annual Averages, African-Americans with some college but no degree have the same unemployment rate as whites with no high school diploma. While the ratio between Black and white unemployment rates decreases as the esteem of the earned degree increases, African-Americans — at no point — have parity with whites under similar circumstances.
When taken in consideration with research from the Federal Reserve that showed that the underemployment rate – or the rate of college graduates working jobs that do not require a college degree — has shown little change since the Great Recession, one must conclude that, while there have been gains, the labor market remains unfriendly for Black college graduates. A lack of quality-paying jobs and applicant discrimination continues to make finding the right job difficult if you are Black and young.
“Following the election of President Obama, Black people experienced a level of hope and possibility for parity previous generations never thought possible,” Andrew Ryan, CEO of corporate consultancy firm Member Suite, said. “In this time of hope, we also saw instances which clearly demonstrated we, as a country, are not as color blind as we thought. This showed up in all areas of society, including socioeconomics.
“While there’s been enormous progress, people of color continue to lag behind white people in income and wealth accumulation.”
Wages and the Meaning of a Job
To understand what is going on in the Black community, it is important to look at the national job numbers first. Across the board, unemployment levels are at or near pre-recession numbers. April’s unemployment rate of 4.4 percent is the lowest rate since May 2007, continuing a 13-month string of progressively lower rates. While April’s addition of 156,000 jobs is on the anemic side — considering recent history — it is growth.
Underemployment, however, has been stagnant at approximately 42 percent, give or take five percent, for the past 20 years. When all college graduate are factored in, this creates a situation where one-third of all American college graduates have a college degree that they do not use.
“Entering the labor market in a severe recession can lead to reduced earnings for as many as 10 to 15 years,” the Economic Policy Institute wrote in its “The State of Working America” series. “Young workers at all levels of educational attainment who enter the labor market during a downturn face higher rates of unemployment. In addition, because of the scarcity of available jobs, these young workers are less likely to land a stable entry-level position that will lead to advancement and are more likely to experience a lengthy period of instability in employment and earnings.”
A deeper dive into the numbers shows what may be behind the nation’s declining unemployment numbers. A look at the BLS’s unemployment rates for persons 25 years and older shows that the unemployment rate for bachelor’s-degree holders has not changed since June 2015, while rates for workers with high school diplomas or with some college show marginal gains. It is with workers with less than a high school diploma that a significant employment spike is seen, with the unemployment rate dropping from 8.1 percent to 6.5 percent since June 2015.
This reality presents a tough challenge for the president, who has made job creation a priority for his administration. These numbers represent a structural change in America’s job market that may be impossible to fix with fiscal policies.
Some of this could be attributed to a critical flaw in recruitment strategies for sourcing hiring candidates. These underemployment figures are occurring at a time that job openings are on the rise. One argument is that the fount of the nations’ new job creation — small and middle-sized businesses, which have been responsible for 70 percent of all new job creation since 2015 — are not reaching out enough to the new graduate class. Many of these businesses cannot perform outreach to these graduates due to economic scale or lack of resources.
Another argument to explain the persistent underemployment problem is the degree trap. In this scenario, employers select new graduates for their companies not based on the skills they have or their ability to do the job, but primarily on the prestige of their degree. This creates a situation where well-skilled, non-degree holders and graduates of less prestigious colleges are excluded from hiring consideration.
This creates an artificially small talent pool. Research from the Rockefeller Foundation found that this situation is so acute that 63 percent of all executive recruiters indicated that they would be open to considering someone without relevant previous experience, compared to the 60 percent of the same group that said they would consider someone without a college degree.
Job Attainment in the Black Community
When you add race on top of all of this, things go askew. “While we are close to 2007 employment numbers, African-Americans are still quite a way from full employment,” Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute, said. Wilson pointed out that if one was to look at the employment-to-population ratio for African-Americans, which is the percentage of African-Americans who are actively working, it is still below 2007 numbers.
This reflects an underreported truth about the Great Recession and African-Americans. Due to the foreclosure crisis and the fact that Black wealth is more likely to be materially stored in the equity of a home than in bank instruments, the Great Recession served to wipe out African-American household wealth. Per the Institute for Policy Studies, if economic trends were to stay the same as today, it would take the average Black family 228 years to accumulate the same amount of wealth a white family has today.
In reality, African-Americans have yet to emerge from the Great Recession. One of the reasons for this is the bleeding of the nation’s construction, manufacturing and public sector jobs. Many of these positions were unionized, allowing African-Americans ready access to higher-paying jobs with better benefits. With the recovery of these jobs slowed or stalled, many African-Americans have been forced to work in lower-paying, less-protected jobs or to leave the workforce altogether.
With wage growth being either stagnant or in free fall for African-Americans since the mid-1990s, the lack of quality jobs has affected the economic mobility of African-Americans. As it stands today, three-quarters of all African-Americans born to lower-income households maintain lower-income households when they become adults.
Another factor is discrimination in hiring. “The job market today is better than what it was four or five years ago. Having said that, there are disparities in job levels for African-Americans across all education levels. African-Americans simply have higher unemployment levels than whites, and racial preference in hiring plays a role in that,” Wilson added.
Solving the Problem
Wilson felt that a way out of this “employment death spiral” is through Federal Reserve intervention. By delaying raising the interest rate, the economy can grow and continue to add jobs. The more openings that are available, the less hiring preferences can viably play a role in staffing.
“In a healthy economy, applicants that would otherwise be ignored in a weak economy would be considered,” Wilson said. “This is essential, considering the historical disparities for African-Americans in wages and job attainment. A healthy economy is one where African-Americans benefit financially.”
However, as previously pointed out, it is impossible to hire an applicant if the employer does not even know he is there. While fiscal policy can play a role in resolving the Black employment problem, another part of the solution may be closer to home.
“As an entrepreneur, I believe one of the surest ways to overcome pay disparities and lack of opportunities is to create our own,” Ryan added. “Black children need to get this message young and they need to hear it often.”
Due in large part to urban gentrification and unfavorable lending conditions, Black entrepreneurship took a hit during the Great Recession. One way forward is to promote the creation of Black enterprises that are local to the Black community. While creating jobs for new Black workers is essential, the larger goal is finding a way to invest wealth into the Black community. Only then can the disparities that challenge African-Americans be addressed and rectified.
Ryan added that “Creating your own business also means you’re more in control of your own destiny when downturns occur and removes the “last hired/first fired” reality from our mix,” Entrepreneurship will happen as more of us take this path, open up networking doors for young business-minded people and venture capitalists look to fund smart ideas and people – regardless of color.”
Between Antifa, #BlackThugsMatter, “Resist”, and general litigation risks, I would be reluctant to hire anyone who did not show outward signs of conservatism.
Plenty of Fish, the dating site, moved past $1 billion in valuation without hiring a single employee.
“African-Americans — at no point — have parity with whites under similar circumstances.”
Nonsense. Both private- and public-sector employers are desperate to hire blacks with equal education and who can do at least minimally acceptable work.
Damned right.
Note to millennials of all races: Get educated. It doesn’t end with school.
Oh, BS. Show me a competent, knowledgable and personable black applicant for any position whatsoever who can’t practically write their own ticket, corporations fight over them. The problem is not race.
Physical appearance, presentation, vocabulary, grooming mean everything....I’ve hired MANY blacks and whites and I judge them on the few minutes they spend with me....do not show up with no respect for yourself. I don’t need attitude (I’ve seen enough of it) I need sincerity, intelligence, proper English, appearance (you will be seen by my CUSTOMERS) and the willingness to prove yourself before you make any demands of me.....so far so good, I’ve made VERY few bad choices !!!!
I would like to compare and contrast black graduates who have a B. S. in math, science, or business versus black graduates with a B. A. in liberal arts or black studies.
Spot On! That’s the way I did it too!
I recall hearing Rush Limbaugh say something many years ago: College doesn’t educate you for a career, it teaches you *How To Learn*.
The best way to learn job skills is by Doing A Job.
“How many can divide 4244.85 by 33.185 without a calculator? How many know the Periodic Table symbol for calcium?”
Neither of these demonstrate marketable skills (except in the latter case, for chemists or possibly some medical personnel). Brutal, lamentable, but true.
Cop: ...why’d ya do it?
Perp:..how else I s’pose to git monies?
...that answer your question
Until the Great Society foolishness in 1965, Blacks had a higher rate of employment than whites. Black men were more likely to be gainfully employed than their white counterparts. Blacks also had a higher marriage rate, higher 2 parent household rate than whites.
Blacks were discriminated against in the most dehumanizing ways, but they hunkered down and worked with vigor and self discipline.
Imagine how great this country would be if instead of welfare slavery, our leaders had focused solely on eliminating unhealthy discrimination and teaching basic wealth creation ( rental property, small business operation )
If that had happened, we’d be a much wealthier country.
And we’d be complaining that blacks had too much money, which is a much better thing to complain about.
welfare slavery killed the black middle class
>lack of quality jobs has affected the economic mobility of African-Americans.
When dealing with RCA details, you must first be honest. Anything else is BS.
This needs to at least go back to the large number of DinDu attitudes and actual sloth. Many employers are hesitant to gamble on the odds.
In other words...physician heal thyself.
That would screw up the whole story line!
People who walk out during graduation exercises, and can’t pull up their pants don’t find jobs easily. And those whose degree was on Trangendering the genders.
Re: Obama’s election ““In this time of hope, we also saw instances which clearly demonstrated we, as a country, are not as color blind as we thought.”
No we aren’t, and you can thank Obama for that. He set race relations back many years.
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Numerous paragraphs of angst about black unemployment. Not a single sentence of concern about whether said unfortunates actually possess marketable job skills that will get them employed.
Ultimately this sort of article is just doing its part to perpetuate discrimination against blacks. But its not discrimination in the sense that blacks are being discriminated against due to their race. They’re being discriminated against because in many cases they don’t have the necessary skills or behaviors to be employed in good paying jobs. Fix that and you fix the discrimination.
But that’s the real rub, isn’t it? Having a well educated, well employed blacks has never been considered particularly desirable by the political class.
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