Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 3, 1993 TAG: 9310010183
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY STEPHEN FRANKLIN AND JOHN SCHMELTZER CHICAGO TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"If you look at the jobless rate for whites as the recession ebbs, it is\ going down, but then you look at the rate for blacks and it seems like a\ different economy," said Bill Spriggs, an economist with the Economic Policy\ Institute in Washington.
Government figures show that blacks make up 12 percent of the overall\ population but account for more than one out of five of the nation's 9 million\ jobless workers.
That figure has barely changed since 1990, said an official with the U.S.\ Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Furthermore, while unemployment among white workers fell to 5.9 percent in August, it remains at 12.5 percent for blacks, according to bureau figures. As the U.S. economy started to head downward in 1990, the black unemployment rate was 11.3 percent, compared with 4.7 percent for whites, according to the government.
Sears, Roebuck and Co. and McDonald's Corp. were among the major U.S. companies with sizable job losses among black workers during the 1990-91 downturn, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.
While one out of five of the workers it laid off in 1990 was black, Sears, Roebuck & Co. officials said that the company has "remained committed to diversity in the work force."
"This company has a lot to be proud of," said Arthur Martinez, chairman and chief executive of the Sears Merchandise Group.
Minorities account for 24 percent of Sears' employees, and black workers make up about 15 percent of Sears' work force, according to Martinez.
McDonald's officials challenged the Journal's figures, saying they did not reflect the company's policies or its attempt to maintain minority workers within the company's ranks.
"The figures are a good example of how statistics can lie," said Chuck Ebeling, a McDonald's spokesman.
Blacks made up about 36 percent of the job losses at McDonald's in 1990, according to the Journal article.
The layoffs were the result of the company's sale of 270 company-owned restaurants to franchise owners. Of these, 53 were sold to black franchise holders, said Ebeling.
"There has not been any shifting away from the black community," said Ebeling, adding that black workers make up about 20 percent of McDonald's U.S. work force.
One reason for the steady loss of jobs for black workers nationwide is the "statistical mismatch" between the location of jobs and the nation's black community, said Barry Bluestone, a professor of political economy at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
"The jobs have moved away from the cities and blacks more than anybody else have been trapped in the inner cities," he said.
But black workers' problems go beyond the loss of jobs as factories close and stores leave their communities, said Spriggs.
Despite steady gains in pay and job opportunities in the 1970s, black workers began to face setbacks in the mid-1980s and this trend recently began to appear, Spriggs said.
by CNB