Diversity Employers

PREMIER 2013

Editorial objective:1- give diverse jobseekers sound information on job opportunities and how to successfully navigate the job search process,2- invite “employers of choice” to share success secrets and valuable information on where the jobs are.

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Research Supports Black Americans' Perception of Job Bias Experts, studies, labor data indicate whites still have advantages By Dana Wilkie i n 1963, near the apex of the civil rights movement, almost three of every four black Americans believed that whites had a better chance at a job than they did. That sentiment has changed in the past fve decades, but in the opinion of some, it hasn't changed enough. Today, three out of fve black Americans feel the same way, according to a Gallup poll released in late August 2013 on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. "Fifty years after Martin Luther King's landmark speech on racial equality, many blacks—in some cases, a majority—feel that blacks do not have equality with whites in matters of jobs, education, and housing," wrote Gallup researchers, who polled 1,001 black Americans by telephone from Aug. 9-22, 2013. Are black Americans justifed in believing they're at such a disadvantage? "The answer is absolutely yes," said Darrick Hamilton, associate professor of economics and urban policy at The New School in New York City. "The continued perception of racial bias in employment is consistent with labor market realities." The Gallup poll found that 60 percent of blacks in the U.S. believe that whites have an advantage at getting jobs for which they're qualifed. In 1963, 74 percent of blacks thought that whites had better employment chances, according to the Gallup researchers. many blacks ... feel that blacks do not have equality with whites in matters of jobs, education, and housing," wrote Gallup researchers... In a speech during anniversary celebrations, President Barack Obama told Americans that the unemployment rate 28 Diversity Employers | DiversityEmployers.com | First Semester December 2013 of blacks was twice that of whites.He wasn't far off. In 1963 the unemployment rate for all Americans was 5.7 percent; for blacks it was 10.8 percent, according to the U.S. Labor Department. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that in August 2013 the overall black unemployment rate was 13 percent, compared with 6.4 percent for whites and an overall national rate of 7.3 percent. A 2013 report from Brandeis University's Institute on Assets and Social Policy revealed that the median net worth of white households was $265,000 in 2009, while the median net worth of black households was $28,500."The conventional wisdom is that when the unemployment rate reaches around 8 percent the nation is in an economic crisis," Hamilton said. "Over the past 40 years, since unemployment data has been routinely reported by race, there has been only one year in which the black unemployment

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