*According to a new study, Black men continue to have high unemployment rates because companies refuse to hire them.
Business Insider writes, “By not hiring them to fill the 10.6 million open jobs, companies are partially responsible for $50 billion missing in the economy,” according to a new study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
Here’s more from the outlet:
The unemployment rate for Black men remains high: 7.3% in November, compared to 3.4% among white men looking for work, according to Labor Department data. Roughly 697,000 Black men need employment, even as the country recorded 10.6 million vacant jobs in November.
According to the CEPR study, Black men are excluded from the workforce due to racist hiring practices, as well as being killed and imprisoned at higher rates than other groups. This doesn’t just hurt Black men and their families and communities — CEPR estimates that the lost income from racial discrimination costs the overall US economy $50 billion a year.
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Algernon Austin, the author of the CEPR study, noted that closing the Black-white jobs gap, “could add about $30 billion annually to Black communities and make a significant reduction in Black poverty,” Austin writes.
“Since we typically focus on the unemployment rate, we are missing the full impact of joblessness for Black men,” said Austin.
“Black job-seekers face discrimination even when they have an elite college degree, such as one from Harvard or Stanford,” S. Michael Gaddis, a UCLA sociologist who studies employment discrimination told Insider.
The study noted that incarceration and death at a young age are two major reasons for the low employment rate among Black men.
It’s “the self-evident discrimination in the labor market revealing itself,” Dr. William Spriggs, an economics professor at Howard University and the chief economist for the AFL-CIO told Insider. “The numbers this time are just startling.
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