Sidney Hayes was let go from her old job with a floral and event design company at the end of January. But she didn’t stay on the sidelines for long.
Last month, Hayes, 27, took a job with German sportscar giant Porsche North America, working as a public relations events coordinator based out of the company’s experience center near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
“I was shaking,” Hayes said about the moment she was offered the job in February. The previous weeks had been tough for her, trying to navigate unemployment benefits while also planning her wedding and looking for a new job. “I was kind of just nervous about my future.”
In March, the national unemployment rate for Black workers like Hayes fell to the lowest levels on record. The rate decreased from 5.7% the prior month to 5%, a small but history-making drop, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Historically, the unemployment rate for Black workers is higher than the national average, a sign of persistent inequities in the nation’s economy. But strong labor markets tend to shrink the gap — not just for Blacks, but for many marginalized workers, including other ethnic minorities, people with less education and those with disabilities.
Overall, employers added 236,000 jobs in March and the national unemployment rate fell to 3.5%.
In Georgia, the unemployment rate for Black workers is also higher than the overall rate. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the most recent figures available, the Black unemployment rate in Georgia was 5.1% according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank that specializes in labor and wage issues, better than the national rate at the time. The jobless rate for all Georgians was 3.1% at the end of the year.
The jobless rate includes only those without a job who are actively searching for work. It surged as the COVID-19 pandemic triggered lockdowns and bludgeoned the economy. But it started dropping as the economy rebounded from the massive job losses early in the pandemic and it has continued to hover near all-time lows.
Economists give much of the credit to emergency federal spending, which propped up the finances of many households and companies, and fueled overall demand.
Georgia has been among the beneficiaries. The state’s economy has nearly 200,000 more jobs than it did before the pandemic and has added 135,100 of those jobs in the past year. Georgia’s jobless rate, which going into the pandemic was 3.6%, is now 3.1%.
Wage gains — while moderating in recent months — have been strong for many workers, especially at the bottom of the income scale.
But historically, the benefits do not reach all groups equally. Even at the peak of recoveries, the jobless rate for Black workers has typically been well above that of white workers and when a recession hits, the jobless rate for Black workers has often shot into double digits.
Which was also the case when COVID-19 disrupted the economy, disproportionately impacting Black and minority workers. In the early months of the pandemic, Black unemployment hit nearly 17%.
And while the Black unemployment rate is still higher than for whites, the difference between the two fell to a record low nationally in March, to only a 1.8-percentage point gap.
So the Federal Reserve’s 16-month campaign to corral inflation poses a special danger for workers playing catch-up.
The Fed has been raising interest rates to make borrowing more costly, which it hopes will slow growth, temper hiring and lead to small wage hikes and less of a need for companies to raise prices. Fed officials have said they don’t want to tip the economy into a painful recession with large-scale layoffs, but the central bank’s track record on soft landings — cutting inflation without a deep downturn — is somewhat spotty.
So far, the economy has kept growing, but the pace of hiring has started to decelerate. Inflation has ebbed, but it’s still an issue, which means the Fed could keep hiking rates.
If the Fed’s rate hikes do lead to an increase in layoffs, those workers could face similar hurdles to receiving unemployment benefits as Hayes did.
Credit: Special to the AJC
Credit: Special to the AJC
“It was very frustrating,” Hayes said of the process. It took around four weeks for her to initially hear back from the Georgia labor department, just for the agency to request more information. From filing at the end of January to starting her new job at the beginning of March, Hayes said she only received one $300 check.
And while trying to navigate unemployment benefits, Hayes, who got engaged in November, was questioning if she would have to put her wedding planning on hold. “I just was in like a depression hole.”
But now with her new job at Porsche, Hayes feels excited and energized.
“I‘m very grateful for it,” she said. “I cannot wait to see kind of how my career jumps off.”
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