The story behind the explosive statistics: why blacks are losing ground in the workforce - unemployment among African-Americans

Ebony, Dec, 1993 by Muriel L. Whetstone

Why Blacks Are Losing Ground In The WORKFORCE

MARKETING executive MichaeX D. Randolph thought his corporate star was rising at Digital Equipment Corporation. After more than five years, the 34-year-old business administr}tion graduate was managing a two-person sales force and was in charge of hardware and software sales for a tristate region in the Philadelphia area. But instead of promotions and company kudos, Randolph found himself a victim of what is being popularly referred to as "corporate downsizing," More bluntly, he was laid off and given two months to pack up and vacate.

Recent studies show that Randolph was only one of thousands of Black white- and blue-collar workers permanently sacrificed during the 1990-1991 recession. Although Whites and other minorities lost and found jobs, according to at least one of those studies, Blacks were the only group to lose more positions than they gained. National civil rights activists say there are a number of reasons behind the explosive statistics which indicate that Black workers are losing ground to Whites, Asians and Hispanics.

The statistics are distressing. According to a recent Wall Street Journal study, based on Equal Employment Opportunity Commission records, Black Americans registered a net loss of over 59,000 jobs during the most recent economic downturn. In fact, Blacks' share of jobs in 1990 and 1991 plummeted for the first time in nine years, eliminating three years of steady increases. And even though more Black men and women received bachelor's degrees in the 1980s, their annual salaries, according to another study based on U.S. Census Bureau figures, remained well below that of Whites with the same qualifications.

Why have Black workers at all educational levels suffered so disproportionately? Are America's major corporations explicitly targeting Blacks more often than Whites and other minority groups? Elaine R. Jones, director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, says that if the country is in the midst of an economic downturn, "African-Americans, like everybody else, are going to lose jobs." But she says the administrative policies of former Presidents Reagan and Bush were primarily responsible for threatening the employment gains African-Americans realized in the 1970s. Dr. Mary Frances Berry of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights adds that regulations allowing corporations to report all their minority employees as one group in order to satisfy their equal employment requirements, masked "the fact that Blacks were not benefiting from the greatest economic expansion in recent memory."

At the same time, says Jones, a "national message was being sent that diversity, which means inclusion of African-Americans in the workplace, was no longer a national priority." She goes on the cite AT&T's efforts to ensure Blacks didn't take a "bigger hit than other minorities" as a model for other corporations to follow. But "to be watchful," she says, a corporation has "to care. It's not the kind of thing that you can simply say will take care of itself."

But some economic experts, including Dr. Andrew F. Brimmer, president of Brimmer & Co. Inc., say Blacks need to be more cautious in completely accepting recent reports that they are losing ground in the labor market. The Wall Street Journal article, he says, "implies that the changes they noted from one year to the next is indicative of more fundamental and longer running changes, and I'm saying you can't tell that" from the data presented. Brimmer also raised questions about the need for separate minority reporting, commenting that "if the objective is to enhance opportunities" for all minorities, "I see no reason to do that."

Most experts, however, say Blacks cannot rely soley on politicians and corporate executives to oversee their employment status. Blacks must insist, they say, on minority hiring reports which indicate the precise number of Blacks, Whites and other minorities in a company's workforce and that companies need to be put on notice that Blacks are patrolling their employment practices. "If they know that excuses will be given and nothing will happen" when Blacks are disproportionately affected by downsizing, says Berry, we'll witness a repeat performance of the Reagan-Bush years.

While Republican politics were pivotal in the "hit" Blacks took during the recession, activists say institutionalized racism and deeply embedded racial discrimination remain fundamental reasons why Blacks often are the first targets of corporate cutbacks and plant layoffs. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, executive director of the NAACP, observes that although "apartheid" is illegal in the United States, it's still operative as what he calls "unofficial apartheid."

Not only Blacks but all people of color "have not been given asset value in this society," Chavis says. "We're still considered liabilities." Adds John E. Jacob, president of the National Urban League: "There are sitll stereotypes that exist out there in the marketplace that would suggest that African-Americans should not be viewed as people, but should be viewed as problems.