Asians resilient during recession
This isn’t new or anything, but labor stats that just came out show asians are doing better than other groups in staying employed and also in median earnings.
Unemployment in the U.S. has risen dramatically since the economic recession commenced in December 2007 – as a whole, the jobless rate climbed from about 5 percent to 9.5 percent through June 2010.
However, while Asian-Americans have also witnessed a rise in joblessness, their rates remain below the comparable figures for whites, blacks and Hispanics.
Joblessness for Asians during this period climbed from 3.7 percent to 7.7 percent, meanwhile, the June 2010 rate for African-Americans exceeds 15 percent, while Latinos are just above 12 percent (both well above the average). Whites are just under the broader average at 8.6 percent.
Also:
Among the major race and ethnicity groups, median earnings for black men working at full-time jobs were $632 per week, 75.4 percent of the median for white men, $838. The differencewas less among women, as black women’s median earnings ($585) were 85.8 percent of those forwhite women ($682). Overall, median earnings of Hispanics who worked full time ($529) werelower than those of blacks ($607), whites ($756), and Asians ($873).
asian men outperformed every other group that the labor department has stats for, earning a median $901 a week. asian women were 2nd only to asian men at $854 a week. (keep in mind that these are median numbers. if the average wage was considered, whites would still out-earn all groups because of outliers like bill gates.)
of course, not all asian sub-groups are equal, so several southeast asian groups such as hmong and cambodians underperformed their other asian peers. still, it’s nice to see asians are doing well overall comparatively.