Black Unemployment Hits Record 16.5%

The Black Unemployment rate increased by 0.3% to 16.5% of the total Black labor force. Approximately 2.9 Million Blacks are unemployed, an increase of 86,000 over the prior month. Eighty nine thousand additional Black men became unemployed while 27,000 Black women lost jobs. During the same period all other demographic groups had small decreases.

In the general labor market, the overall unemployment rate may have peaked. The general unemployment rate decreased from 10.0% to 9.7%. The total number of unemployed person dropped by 430,000 to approximately 14.8 million.