How America's jobs recovery left Black women behind

Although plenty of Americans have this year returned to work or rebounded from a COVID-19 related layoff, the U.S. jobs recovery so far "has largely left behind Black Americans and workers without college degrees," The Washington Post writes.

But chief among those forgotten in the employment bounceback are Black women, whose unemployment is the "least recovered," reports the Post — still, there are "more than 550,000 fewer adult Black women working now than in February 2020," but the broad unemployment rate hides the disparaties.

Women of color frequently cited child-care struggles, health concerns, "overlooked and ignored online applications," as well as too many low-paying jobs as roadblocks in their job hunt, the Post reports.

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"I wish people understood the struggle is real," said Jasmine Yates, a Houston-based Black woman whose job search has taken months."If someone actually went on Indeed or ZipRecruiter and saw how often they get ghosted or how many hundreds of people apply for one job, they would see that the struggle is real."

A Labor Department analysis turned out similar qualms: Black men and women are about twice as likely as white Americans to say "they're unable to look for work because they can't find child care or because they have other family responsibilities," a Post analysis reveals.

Even though economists predict a "return to full employment around late 2022," the "unevenness" of the progress thus far is "a reminder that the nation has to watch carefully in the coming months to ensure certain groups aren't left behind."

"Across racial and ethnic groups, we saw a big unemployment shock in the worst possible way," said Bradley Hardy, a Georgetown University professor. But "the unevenness really did widen for Black families and Black workers, in particular."