African America’s April 2024 Jobs Report – 5.6%

OVERALL UNEMPLOYMENT: 3.9%

AFRICAN AMERICA: 5.6%

LATINO AMERICA: 4.8%

EUROPEAN AMERICA: 3.5%

ASIAN AMERICA: 2.8%

Analysis: European Americans saw a tick up of 10 basis points in their unemployment rate after three straight months of no change. Asian and Latino Americans both saw increases of 30 basis points from April. African Americans had a decrease in their unemployment rate of 80 basis points for April.

AFRICAN AMERICAN UNEMPLOYMENT RATE BY GENDER & AGE

AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN: 5.2%

AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN: 5.0% 

AFRICAN AMERICAN TEENAGERS: 18.2%

AFRICAN AMERICAN PARTICIPATION BY GENDER & AGE

AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN: 68.7%

AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN: 62.9%

AFRICAN AMERICAN TEENAGERS: 33.2%

Analysis: African American Men saw an decrease in their unemployment rate by 100 basis points and African American Women decreased by 60 basis points. African American Men and Women decreased their participation rate in April by 90 basis points and 10 basis points, respectively. African American Teenagers unemployment rate pulls back with a decrease of 190 basis points, but still up almost 60 percent from January. African American Teenagers also had their participation rate increase by 40 basis points up to their highest participation rate over the past five months for the second month in a row.

African American Men-Women Job Gap: African American Women currently have 781,000 more jobs than African American Men in April. This is an increase from 710,000 in March.

CONCLUSION: The overall economy added 175,000 jobs in April while African America added 66,000 jobs. From New York Times, “The cooling job market could bring relief to a tight housing market, where the average rate for a 30-year mortgage hit 7.22 percent this week. “An economy that is too hot is not good for interest rates,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. “Hence, the latest news of some cooling in the labor market could mean the topping-out of mortgage rates this week before more sustained declines through the remainder of this year.”