The unemployment rate for Black women in the US is sitting at a little over 7%. There’s a running saying within the Black community: “Last hired, first fired.” However, I think we need to extend the saying to include the duration as well. Black women are not only more likely to be unemployed, but they’re also more likely to be unemployed longer.

It comes at a time when more Black women are earning college degrees, making them among the most educated groups in the United States.  Black women are also the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs, with business ownership growing by more than 50% in recent years. Above all else, despite economic and systemic barriers, homeownership rates among Black women are rising. So how and why are Black women being forced out of the workforce?

Dismantling DEI

Project 2025 made it very clear how Donald Trump felt about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and the federal workforce in the US. Saying (about the federal workforce) that, “the surest way to put the federal government back to work for the American people is to reduce its size and scope back to something resembling the original constitutional intent. And DEI?

“The federal government should delete a variety of terms, including DEI, abortion, and gender equality, from every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” 

The thing is, sweeping federal job cuts eliminated nearly 100,000 roles previously held by Black women, while corporate rollbacks of DEI initiatives have directly destabilized roles where Black female professionals are highly represented.

Systemic Barriers

This goes back to the sad but true saying mentioned before. In a country that has racism embedded in its soil, we can’t ignore how this plays a role in the current state of work for Black women. Discrimination inside and outside of the workplace was one of the reasons DEI was implemented in the first place.

For example, the Crown Act was created in 2019 by Dove and the CROWN (Creating a Respectful Open World for Natural Hair) Coalition to ensure protection against discrimination based on race-based hairstyles and textures, such as locs, twists, braids, and knots, in the workplace and public schools.

Why? Studies have shown that both Black men and women were discouraged from wearing their natural hair in the workplace, or might even not be considered for a job if they wore their natural hair to an interview.

Using a referral as a way towards employment also doesn’t work for Black workers in the same way as others. The Strength of Whites’ Ties, a sociological study on labor market inequality by Fabiana Silva, found that white job seekers disproportionately benefit from professional referrals. In contrast, black applicants face lower network returns because employers’ statistical discrimination discounts equivalent referrals.

More specifically, Black candidates only saw positive referral effects when the referrer was white and the hiring manager had relatively low prejudice.

The Introduction of AI

Major corporations are using AI to filter job candidates. Saying that it saves money and time for the company, which may be the case. However, a Stanford University study has found that AI hiring tools initiate racial bias and recommend white candidates at higher rates than Black and Asian candidates.

Another discouraging fact is that because many employers rely on the same small group of AI vendors, similar algorithms are used across organizations. Resulting in a system where applicants rejected by one employer are significantly more likely to be rejected by others using the same tool. The study found that some applicants were rejected across multiple applications at rates exceeding what would be expected if hiring decisions were independent.

What Happens Next

Unfortunately, the future is unpredictable. Every day, I find myself and others reading headlines and social media posts about savings being drained, GoFundMe’s being created for rent, and a sense of dread hanging over the heads of thousands because they’ve been out of work for months (some of them for years). The light has come from community-based resources and a willpower that has seemingly been embedded in Black women since the dawn of time.