Brittany Luce

And because you had all of the public sector cuts from Doge at the beginning of last year, Black workers are kind of disproportionately represented in the public sector workforce.

And so that's why you're seeing numbers for Black unemployment much higher than the baseline unemployment rate right now.

Also, this kind of low hire economy is particularly hard on young workers, early career workers.

Mm-hmm.

They're having a much harder time getting their foot in the door in a labor market where, like Nitish said, there's a lot of caution and there's not a lot of willingness to spend the resources to train someone who is maybe new and has less experience.

And so if you look at the unemployment rate for people between 20 and 24 years old who have college degrees, it's up more than a full percentage point from last year.

the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures, how many people say they are employed part-time for economic reasons?

And that means that they wanted a full-time job and they either couldn't find one, so they accepted a part-time job or they got their hours cut.

And the number of people employed part-time for economic reasons is at its highest level since 2021.

So this could also contribute to this malaise where I'm working, but I'm not happy in my job.

This isn't the job I really wanted.

I'm not getting enough hours, so I'm not making enough to support my family.

A lot of those things I think you could read into this number.

Right.

But I also remember this other trend in unemployment was happening not that long ago.

Y'all remember the great resignation?

It was only in 2021, 2022, when workers left their jobs in record numbers to look for other work.

That was like four or five years ago.

I feel like I have whiplash right now with how quickly the employment trends have shifted.

Yeah.