Business
African American unemployment rises despite an overall improvement in jobs numbers
The U.S. unemployment rate fell last month to its lowest level in more than two and a half years as employers stepped up hiring in response to the slowly improving economy.
The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent last month from 9 percent in October. The rate hasn’t been that low since March 2009, during the depths of the recession.
However, unemployment ticked up amongst African-Americans up from 15.1 to 15.5 percent and black teen joblessness also went up from 37.8 to 39.6, after three straight months of drops.
Still, 13.3 million Americans remain unemployed. And a key reason the unemployment rate fell so much was because roughly 315,000 people had given up looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed.
The presidential election is less than a year away, which means President Barack Obama will almost certainly face voters with the highest unemployment rate of any president since World War II. Rival Republicans have made the nation’s joblessness a key campaign issue.
Meanwhile, Europe’s financial crisis threatens to slow U.S. growth next year. A recession in Europe could reduce U.S. exports, hurt global financial markets and dampen business confidence.
Employers added 120,000 jobs last month. And the previous two months were revised up to show that 72,000 more jobs added, the fourth straight month the government revised prior months higher.
Private employers added a net gain of 140,000 jobs last month. Governments, meanwhile, shed another 20,000 jobs, mostly at the local and state level. Governments at all levels have shed almost a half-million jobs in the past year.
