Racial jobs gap widens in county
Leaders trying to better blacks’ work prospects
The Journal Gazette
“When people find doors that are closed, and no options, that’s when they give up,” he said.
Ray wasn’t surprised to hear the black unemployment rate has increased; he’s seen a ramping up of demand over the past couple of years for the Urban League’s programs for unemployed.
The Urban League, 2135 S. Hanna St., has been cultivating its contacts with local businesses.
If unemployed people can’t be matched to a potential job, Urban League staff and volunteers try to identify skills and deficiencies – whether adults are trying to get back into the workplace or get a first job.
There’s a jobs board, where unemployed can check daily postings. The Urban League offers a résumé-writing service, and everyone who enters leaves with an e-mail address if they don’t already have one because so many jobs today require online applications, Ray said.
Learn more: For information about Urban League programs, go to www.fwurbanleague.org or call 745-3100
FORT WAYNE – Most of the people sitting around long tables at the Fort Wayne Urban League on a recent weekday afternoon were too young to work.
But the organizer of the forum on race and poverty said she was motivated to plan the program in part because she’s concerned about future job prospects – and how they affect quality of life – for kids at risk of dropping out of school.
“Race, poverty, education, the criminal justice system – it’s all one,” said Sheila Curry Campbell, who leads a local chapter of the national group Students Against Violence Everywhere.
The topic was timely: Allen County’s black community is bearing the brunt of the recession, with about one in four adults jobless last year as the racial unemployment disparity grew, U.S. census figures released last month suggest.
Black unemployment grew dramatically in Allen County in just a year – from an estimated 15.5 percent unemployment among blacks in 2008 to 28.2 percent last year, according to statistics by the census’s American Community Survey.
In comparison, unemployment among whites grew from an estimated 5.1 percent in 2008 to 9.5 percent in 2009. The gap between employment of the two races widened from an estimated 10.4 percentage points in 2008 to 18.7 percentage points in 2009.
Reliable data on local unemployment by race are difficult to find. The American Community Survey data on black unemployment – because they cover a small segment of the population – have a margin of error of about 5 percentage points most years.
Even the best-case scenario in Allen County, based on the margin of error, has a 12-point spread, with black unemployment at 22.9 percent versus 10.8 percent for whites.
The worst-case scenario based on that margin of error has black unemployment in Allen County last year at 33.5 percent, putting the county on par with Detroit’s Wayne County, where an estimate of nearly one in three blacks was unemployed.
The numbers come as no surprise to many in Allen County, including Campbell, whose after-school program at the Urban League gathered a group of kids of various races and all ages for a roundtable discussion.
Despite the downturn in local manufacturing, Campbell still believes training in the skilled trades is an important part of the area’s educational landscape. She’s been working with a local executive to write letters to union halls, asking for skilled-trades workers to mentor students as a way to keep kids in school while teaching them job skills.
She maintains hope that middle-class jobs will return, and she hopes the words of her father – who was always tinkering with cars and taught Campbell’s brother the trade – will yet prove true.
“My dad always told me, ‘If you can build it with your hands, you’ll always have a job,’ ” she said.
Racial disparity in unemployment isn’t new. Nationally, the black unemployment rate tends to be about twice the white rate.
In September, the national unemployment rate was 8.7 percent for whites and 16.1 percent for blacks, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The American Community Survey’s data aren’t directly comparable to those compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics because of differences in data collection.
Other parts of the nation show the trend as well. In Washington, D.C., the employment gap is the widest it has ever been, according to a study this month by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, which conducts research on budget and tax issues in the District of Columbia.
And a report this year by the Economic Policy Institute found that in Minneapolis and Memphis, black unemployment rates were three times the white rates. The non-profit Washington, D.C., think tank focuses on the economic conditions of low- and middle-income Americans.
The Economic Policy Institute’s analysis looked at the country’s 50 largest metropolitan areas, which do not include Fort Wayne.
The report measured joblessness by looking at the percentages of people over the age of 16 who did not have jobs and were actively looking for work. But the number also includes “discouraged workers” who have given up looking for employment and those incarcerated or on probation or parole.
The Economic Policy Institute also analyzed Current Population Survey data on Indiana’s unemployment rate for The Journal Gazette. The data showed Indiana’s black unemployment rate rose to 18.7 percent last year, the highest it had been since the mid-1980s, compared with 8.8 percent last year for whites.
The estimates can’t be directly compared with the American Community Survey, which comes from other sources and has less stringent criteria for its definition of unemployment. The American Community Survey showed Indiana’s unemployment rate for blacks at 20.8 percent last year and 9.9 percent for whites.
Comparable or not, all the data sources showed a disproportionate impact of the recession on blacks in the workforce.
The situation has Princess Sharp, 21, rethinking her goals. The IPFW student clutched a stack of books and pulled her bright blue jacket closer as she walked across campus to a Friday afternoon class.
She lost her job working with developmentally disabled people about two years ago but considers herself fortunate because she was able to find a similar job since then. Still, she’s working toward a degree in psychology and, in the meantime, is also training to be a dental technician – all in hopes she’ll find not merely a job but one that will last.
“Job security is very important to me,” she said.
As the Urban League works with job-seekers to find positions and promote education, it also wants to work with employers, CEO Jonathan Ray said.
While the Urban League’s goal is to make sure potential employees are prepared, Ray also wants local employers to work to make their job-selection processes inclusive.
“We need to promote more diversity in the workplace,” he said.
The Economic Policy Institute’s recent analysis of metropolitan areas found racial disparities in unemployment even at the same education level.
But that doesn’t mean education is any less important. The Rev. Bill McGill, president of the Fort Wayne-Allen County NAACP, has called it “issue one, issue two and issue three” on the local branch’s list of priorities.
The branch recently gave the largest scholarship to a college student in its history, a $2,000 grant to a student studying pre-medicine. It’s part of a goal to teach black youth that the academic process doesn’t stop at high school.
“A college degree is no longer an option,” McGill said. “It’s a necessity.”
McGill believes fostering a spirit of entrepreneurship also will be an important element in reducing the racial disparity. He invokes the spirit of Madam C.J. Walker, the Indianapolis businesswoman said to be the first woman to become a millionaire by her own achievements.
“It’s not who you work for but who works for you,” he said. “That’s the reality of the new economy.”
Some professionals at McGill’s church, Imani Baptist Temple, are planning a program to help people look at their résumés – specifically to address wording on résumés to help potential employees better sell and market themselves.
The idea, similar to the Urban League’s, is nothing new, McGill said, but the more programs like it, the better.
“Somebody in Allen County is starting to hire,” he said. “So we’ve got to make sure all individuals are put in the mix.”
No comments:
Post a Comment