 |
|
|
|||||
When the government shutdown came to an end last month, the much-delayed jobs report for September was finally released, revealing that the unemployment rate had inched up to 4.4%the highest it had been in four years. Amid a tough job market and economic uncertainty, its little surprise that unemployment is on the rise again. In the latest jobs dispatch that was published today, unemployment had ticked up to 4.6% for the month of November. But its a specific segment of the workforce that is most acutely feeling the effects of this spike in unemployment: For Black workers, the rate has stretched to 8.3%, up from 6%, in just the last six months. The rate among white workers, by comparison, has remained relatively steady, hovering just over 3%. Why Black unemployment is rising There are many reasons for this particular increase in unemployment. But experts say the dizzying pace of the Trump administrations attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion has notably contributed to the rising unemployment rate among Black workersand, more specifically, Black women, though the new jobs report for November indicates that unemployment among Black men has also increased. The DEI pullback orchestrated by the Trump administration is not solely to blame for this dip in employment, though it plays a significant role. Since assuming office, Trump has taken aim at DEI programs across the public and private sectors. Starting in January, Trump issued a flurry of executive orders that shut down DEI offices across the federal government. He also reversed a key executive action that had promoted racial equity by curtailing discriminatory employment practices among contractors that work with the federal government. In addition, Trump has sought to dissolve DEI efforts across corporate America by directing federal agencies to investigate private companiesa move that has led many employers to reevaluate their DEI policies or eliminate certain programs altogether. The job losses catalyzed by Trumps directive to cut DEI roles across the federal government have affected Black workers, who also tend to hold diversity jobs in higher numbers. Even beyond that, the federal job losseswhich are on track to reach 300,000 by the end of the yearhave hit Black workers especially hard, because they are overrepresented in that part of the workforce. Data from September 2024 indicates that almost half of federal workers are women and about 41% are people of color. An analysis by the National Womens Law Center (NWLC) earlier this year found that women and people of color were overrepresented at many of the federal agencies that saw significant reductions in their workforce. The Trump administrations cuts have also targeted probationary workersthose in their first year of service or people who have recently been promotedwho are more likely to be women. It really boils down to sort of a perfect storm of factors, says Valerie Wilson, the director of the program on race, ethnicity, and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute. We have the federal layoffs and job losses. We have the retraction of DEI policies . . . and organizations, including the federal government, that have essentially eliminated DEI departments or roles that were likely held by a large number of Black women. Wilson also notes that job losses across industries have disproportionately impacted womenfrom manufacturing to professional and business services. How the DEI backlash has impacted Black workers While its difficult to quantify the full scope of how anti-DEI measures have impacted Black employment, Wilson says theres no doubt that theres a correlationand that the fallout goes beyond the elimination of DEI jobs held by Black workers. The Trump administrations approach to DEI has also reshaped the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has made unlawful DEI-related discrimination a focus of its enforcement under new chair Andrea Lucas. Wilson argues the administrations actions have a chilling effect, both on corporate DEI efforts and when it comes to how workers can seek recourse if they do face discrimination in the workplace. The fear that they might be targeted or face litigation has already driven employers to make significant changes to their DEI programs in recent years, dating back to the Supreme Court decision that struck down affirmative action in 2023. Tech companies like Meta and Google have dropped representation goals that were intended to diversify their ranksonce a common practice in the industrywhile major employers like Walmart and McDonalds have stopped prioritizing diverse suppliers and pulled out of the Human Rights Commissions Corporate Equality Index, an influential benchmarking survey that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ workers. Lauren Khouri, the senior director of workplace equality at the NWLC, points out that there are plenty of other programs that have been harmed by federal cuts and, in turn, impact workers of coloreven if they are not explicitly denoted as DEI initiatives. Its not just the cuts that we’ve seen in the federal workforce, she says. If you look at the repercussions of cuts in grant programs across the federal government, we’ve seen an attack on domestic violence and sexual assault service provider organizations across the country, both at the state and local level. We’ve seen an attack on Department of Labor grant programs that specifically went to lifting up women in the trades. Without that funding, those organizationswhose mission and job is to lift up women, people of color, and marginalized communitieshave had to make really hard choices to keep the lights on. The erosion of DEI programs will also play a major role in how Black workers bounce back from this surge in unemployment. I think we have yet to see the full impact, Wilson says. Its going to come into play on the other end of job losses, when we’re looking at how quickly people recoverand not just how quickly they recover, but what kinds of positions they recover into. The purpose of a lot of those programs wasn’t just to hire a more diverse set of workers for any kind of roleit was also [creating] opportunities for people to gain access to higher-level positions. What it will take to recover jobs When Black employment is lagging, it is often a sign of a broader economic downturn, according to Khouriso its not just Black workers who might be faced with job insecurity, if thats any indicator. Since Black workers are concentrated in lower-wage jos that are more vulnerable to fluctuations in the economy, they are often impacted first when a recession is on the horizon. (This was evident during the pandemic, when unemployment spiked to over 16% and Black workers experienced job losses at a record high.) The ongoing backlash to corporate DEI programs is, however, far more likely to impact Black workers seeking out jobs in industries that have historically shut out those workers. In the tech industry, DEI initiatives had slowly helped bring more underrepresented groupsnamely Black and Latino workersinto technical and leadership roles (even if that progress had been halting). The finance industry had made marginal progress on promoting Black employees into senior roles, and Black representation on boards had improved amid calls for greater diversity. A Bloomberg analysis found that in 2021, after many companies made significant investments in DEI efforts, the S&P 100 added more than 300,000 jobsand a whopping 94% of those jobs were filled by people of color. Amid an ongoing federal hiring freeze and slowing employment, Black workers may also face an uphill battle even when it comes to finding steady employment in the federal workforcewhich, until now, had been a more reliable path to the middle class for Black Americans. The reason why we have a more diverse federal workforce is because at one point, the federal government was actually willing to sort of be a leader in establishing more equitable employment practices that were ultimately adopted in states and cities and, to some extent, the private sector, Wilson says. So when we start cutting federal jobs, we’re actually cutting jobs from a sector that hadat least since the 1960sbeen more of a leader in establishing equity. That may not be messaged or presented as explicitly anti-DEI, but it has that effect. The federal government was once a model for how equitable hiring practices could actually transform the workplace and cultivate true diversity. Now, not only has Trump culled the federal workforcebut he has also chipped away at the very DEI policies that could have offset those losses and empowered Black workers to find work in the private sector.
Category:
E-Commerce
AI has now arrived at the Treasury Department. Sam Corcos, a former startup leader and Department of Government Efficiency affiliate now serving as chief information officer at the Treasury Department, appears to have approved spending at least $1.5 million on up to 3,000 licenses for ChatGPT, the OpenAI platform, federal spending records show. The agency has obligations to spend $1.5 million on the services, and has already outlaid more than $500,000 for the technology, those records show. Fast Company obtained a user agreement showing that Treasury is allowing employees to use ChatGPT for authorized mission purposes. Such purposes include using the technology, in certain circumstances, with whats known as controlled unclassified information, a government designation thats given to information that isnt classified, but still requires some safeguarding. The expanded use of the tool comes amid growing pressure on federal agencies to adopt artificial intelligence systems, which advocates say can increase efficiency and cut down on excess bureaucracy. In this case, the rules laid out in the user agreement include strong limits on how AI systems might be usedparticularly, for example, with regards to personally identifiable information, market-sensitive economic information, and federal tax data. The rules also forbid Treasury staffers from trying to tamper with or evade an AI chatbots security measures without express authorization. Employees arent supposed to use the output of an AI system without a human reviewing that work, or obfuscate the role AI played in making a particular product, according to the user agreement. A violation of these rules could lead to someone being fired, the agreement states. One former Treasury official said department staff are probably using the tech on heavy lifting for tasks that would normally take a long time. Tony Arcadi, the official that Sam Corcos replaced, tells Fast Company that there were myriad use cases that could benefit from the technology, including automating administrative work. Done correctly and with robust controls, LLMs could be a force multiplier for intelligence, operations, finance, enforcement, and public engagement,” he says. The agency had previously invested in a smaller cache of ChatGPT licenses.The Treasury Department and OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment. Still, in September, the agency released a compliance plan focused on promoting the use of AI, as well as a strategy spelling out its approach to the technology. Amid the move to speed up the use of AI throughout the government, including the militarys new GenAI.mil tool, theres still the serious risk of government officials putting too much faith in the far from faultless technology.For example, it seems like a recent report from the Department of Health and Human services may have been created using artificial intelligenceand included fake citations. Federal clerks have used ChatGPT and Perplexity and have ended up including misquotes and other errors in documents.
Category:
E-Commerce
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. While national active inventory for sale is still rising year over year, the pace of growth has slowed in recent monthssomething weve been closely documenting for several months for our ResiClub members. The side-by-side maps below help you to see that decelerated rate of inventory growth. Left map: Year-over-year change in metro level active inventory between November 2023 and November 2024 Right map: Year-over-year change in metro level active inventory between November 2024 and November 2025 Click to expand Between November 2023 and November 2024, U.S. active housing inventory for sale rose by 26.1%. Between November 2024 and November 2025, U.S. active housing inventory for sale rose by 12.6%. Some of that percentage deceleration is a denominator effect (i.e., as U.S. active inventory rises, it takes an even larger increase to generate the same year-over-year percentage gain). That said, the deceleration is not only due to a denominator effect. In November 2024, there were 196,885 more U.S. homes for sale than in November 2023. In November 2025, there were 120,003 more U.S. homes for sale than in November 2024. The chart belowyear-over-year unit shift in inventoryhelps us to see the trend without the denominator effect. Why has U.S. active inventory growth slowed? Some of it is due to the number of days on the market not rising as quickly or stabilizing in some markets. Part of the slowdown reflects an increase in delistings in softer markets, as some sellers have thrown in the towel and pulled their listings. And, to a lesser degree, a handful of markets have seen a mild pickup in absorption as existing-home sales have edged up slightly from their multiyear troughs. What does decelerating inventory growth mean? Back in September, I published an article titled “The speed of housing market softening has slowedbut softness remains.” I think that framing still holds for what weve seen in recent months. On a nationally aggregated basis, as inventory growth decelerated in the second half of 2025, so did the pace of market softening. Since then, the U.S. housing market has largely stabilized, with national home price appreciation hovering close to 1% year over year and below U.S. income growth. Of course, there remains significant regional variation: Many pockets of the Midwest and Northeast continue to see mild year-over-year home value gains, while many areas in the Southwest and Southeast are experiencing mild year-over-year declines. What to watch in early 2026? As the nationally aggregated housing market transitions from its seasonally slower period into its seasonally busier spring window, a key question will be how inventory behaves. In particular, it will be important to watch whether the recent uptick in delistings in softer markets comes back online. For example, do homes that were pulled from the market in weaker areassuch as Southwest Floridaquickly reappear once seasonality shifts?
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||