EMPLOYMENT Blacks hurt most in recession because of specific industries

Overall unemployment hit 6.4 percent in June, the highest in nine years.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
The employment picture is bleak. Nationwide, nearly 2.6 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since July 2000.
And that statistic has hit blacks hard.
Black unemployment hit 11.8 percent in June, a new high since the recession began in March 2001. Hispanic unemployment climbed as well, to 8.4 percent, from 8.2 percent.
But while both numbers have historically been higher than that of whites, blacks are being affected much more than Hispanics, whose educational rates substantially trail those of blacks.
The reasons may offer insight into globalization and migration.
Blacks are more heavily concentrated in manufacturing jobs, which have shed workers quickly during this downturn and may not ramp up to their former size because of global outsourcing.
Hispanics are more concentrated in services and construction, two areas that are doing relatively well in this sour economy.
Puzzling phenomenon
Moreover, a puzzling phenomenon is happening: Hispanic employment is climbing at the same time that Hispanic unemployment is creeping up. That reflects the population growth of Hispanics, who are the nation's largest minority group and have a younger median age than blacks and non-Hispanic whites.
"What industry you are in is an important indicator of how well you will do," said economist Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. "Construction is big for Hispanics and that has been helped by the housing boom. Another is health care, and there are Hispanics, females in particular, working in the low end of the sector."
Nationally, the construction industry has received repeated boosts from mortgage rates that are at historic lows.
But manufacturing has shed jobs with such force since July 2000, the start of the manufacturing recession, that every state has lost jobs over the three-year period, according to the National Association of Manufacturers, a Washington-based trade group.
Collectively, the manufacturing industry since July 2000 has contracted by 2.6 million jobs, or about 14 percent.
"Blacks are still overrepresented in the unionized, manufacturing sector," said William Spriggs, director of the National Urban League's Institute on Opportunity and Equality.
And blacks were further hit by their entry into the high-tech sector, the first to be battered by the recession, Spriggs notes.
"Blacks got into the backbone of the Internet -- laying cable, installing equipment -- and that sector is totally bust," he said.
National numbers
Nationally, overall unemployment hit 6.4 percent in June, up from 6.1 percent in May. Non-Hispanic, white unemployment reached 5.5 percent in June, up from 5.4 percent in May. The overall rate was the highest in nine years.
Growth in the construction industry comes via cheap immigrant labor, as well as the tweaking of interest rates by the Federal Reserve, says Raul Hinojosa, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles.
"Blacks basically command more labor market power, whereas Latinos cannot because of their immigration status," Hinojosa said. "Therefore, the wage pressure is kept down on Latinos making them more exploitable, and, therefore, more employable."
Harry Holzer, a Georgetown University professor and the former chief economist for the Labor Department during the Clinton administration, said other factors are at play in explaining the differences in black and Latino unemployment.
Only 57 percent of Hispanics have high school educations, a fact that reflects the high number of immigrants in the group. Among blacks, 79 percent have high school degrees. And among non-Hispanic whites, 88 percent have high school degrees, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
But Latinos benefit from tightly woven job networks, Holzer said. Furthermore, Hispanics are less likely to live in segregating neighborhoods, which means they are dispersed around a wider circle of jobs.
Latinos are more likely to have early job experience in their teens and young adulthood than blacks, he said. And labor participation rates, comparing blacks and Latinos, bear that out. According to June statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Hispanics, 16 to 20, have a participation rate of 43.8 percent, vs. 38.6 percent for blacks.
Beyond that, there are simply issues of perceptions about the two groups, Holzer said.
"Employers are happier to hire Latino males than black men," said Holzer, who edited a book on black youth and their employment. "Black men are the most negatively perceived group. There is this perceived attitude and maybe the employer brings an attitude, too."