Job seekers attend the JobNewsUSA.com South Florida Job Fair held at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida, on June 26, 2024.
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The unemployment rate for women in white, black and Latino racial groups rose in June, in line with the overall trend, according to data released by the Labor Department on Friday.
In June, the unemployment rate for white adult women rose to 3.1% from 3.0% the previous month. The unemployment rate for black and Latina women rose similarly, to 5.7% from 5.2% and 4.5% from 4.1%, respectively.
This trend is in line with the overall unemployment rate, which rose to 4.1% from 4.0% last month.
On the other hand, the unemployment rate fell for men in all three racial groups. The rate fell to 3.2 percent from 3.4 percent for white males, while it fell to 4.2 percent from 4.7 percent for Hispanic males. The unemployment rate also fell to 6.1 percent from 6.4 percent for black males, although this group still has the highest unemployment rates of all demographic groups.
“We’ve seen a lot of gains for women in this pandemic, and in this recovery — a lot of remarkable increases that they’ve seen,” said Elise Gold, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “They’ve reached historical highs in terms of their employment in the labor market. But we saw some decline among women in June, and that was accompanied by this increase for men.”
However, Gold noted that it is curious that this rise in unemployment rates among women last month corresponds with an influx of jobs in health care and social assistance, which are not traditionally thought of as male-dominated fields.
The unemployment rate for white workers overall remained steady at 3.5 percent. That figure fell to 4.9 percent from 5 percent for Hispanic workers, but rose to 6.3 percent from 6.1 percent for black Americans and 4.1 percent from 3.1 percent for Asian Americans. Unemployment rates for Asian workers broken down by gender were not readily available.
Last month, the labor force participation rate — the percentage of the population who is working or actively looking for work — rose to 62.6% from 62.5% in May.
Among white workers, the rate was flat, while among black Americans it fell to 62.7% from 62.9%. That compares with the labor force participation rate for Asian and Latino workers, which rose to 65.9% from 65.3% and 67.5% from 67.3%, respectively.
— CNBC's Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report.
