KEY POINTS
  • Employment statistics for women of color were not only more severe when the Covid-19 pandemic began, but are more sluggish in improving.
  • For white workers, the unemployment rate fell to 5.6% in February. But for Black and Hispanic workers, reported jobless rates were 9.9% and 8.5%, respectively.
  • But as stark as the race- and ethnicity-based disparities are, the recession's unequal impact is more pronounced in analysis that includes both race and gender.
  • Employment for Black women is 9.7% lower than it was in February 2020. Employment for white men, white women, and Black men is down 5%, 5.4% and 5.9%, respectively.
A woman waits in line as food is distributed at the Ebenezer Seventh-day Adventist church on July 22, 2020 in Brooklyn, New York.

Friday's employment report pointed to further signs of a recovery in the U.S. economy, with 379,000 net jobs added and the unemployment rate falling to 6.2%.

But despite the encouraging top-line numbers, the job-market's 2020 swoon and its 2021 recovery have not fallen equally across the U.S. labor force.