Unemployment remains stubbornly high for Black men in New Orleans

14th May 2018   ·   0 Comments

By Susan Buchanan
Contributing Writer

African-American unemployment hit a 46-year low nationally last month, but locally joblessness among Black men remains way too high.

In April, the U.S. jobless rate for African Americans fell to 6.6 percent, the lowest since the Labor Department began tracking it in 1972. U.S. unemployment for whites was 3.6 percent last month, while the rate for all races—recorded since 1948–was 3.9 percent. Each of those numbers is seasonally adjusted.

In Orleans Parish, unemployment in March was 4.3 percent, not seasonally adjusted, down from 9.8 percent in August 2010. The state will release April figures for Orleans in late May.

Black male joblessness in Orleans Parish was 43.9 percent in 2015, versus 52.4 percent in 2011, based on U.S. Census data. But in 2016, it bounced back to 48.4 percent in the latest available numbers.

Being a Black man, a changing job market, lack of education and high incarceration rates are the reasons often given for joblessness among the city’s African American males.

This high unemployment rate is unacceptable, Black businessman Ravi Bates said last week. As co-owner of New Orleans-based STAR Physical Therapy, he discussed his experience with discrimination. “In a job search, just having a name that implies you’re Black can hurt,” he said. “My name’s of Indian origin so getting interviews wasn’t a problem. But at the interview, it was evident they didn’t expect a Black man. They’d say my name was unique and ask if it was foreign.” He grew up in New Orleans East.

The way people speak triggers discrimination. “I was advised by a college professor to have less ethnicity in my voice,” Bates said.

Black men suffer from institutionalized racism. “In our school system, young Black boys are labeled as unable to learn,” he said. “They’re disciplined at greater rates than other children. Later, they’re incarcerated for misdemeanor crimes. That can break up a family. And once they’ve served their time, businesses don’t want to hire them.”

Black men from the ages of 15 to 84 made up 26 percent of the city’s population in May 2017, but they comprised 80 percent of those held in jail in New Orleans, the Vera Institute of Justice in New York said last year. The institute pointed to higher arrest rates and longer jail stays for Black men in Orleans than white males.

Bates said young Black males surrounded by a family tend to reach adulthood equipped to fight for opportunities. “My grandfather was a longshoreman and earned enough money to provide a good living for his wife and nine children,” he said. “But today more than ever, education is key. It’s easier to demand an opportunity when you’re educated.” A school’s commitment to diversity and students’ access to college-prep and career programs are important. Bates is a St. Augustine High School grad, with a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University and a master’s degree from University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Job opportunities for African-American men have evaporated since he started working on the waterfront in 1979, David Magee, president of International Longshoremen’s Association Local 3000, said last week. Back then, he gave up a plan to do veterinary work and joined the thriving local where his father was a member. “But in the 1980s, this area lost longshoremen jobs, and at the same time Avondale Shipyard and Kaiser Aluminum had huge layoffs,” hurting Black and white men, he said. Kaiser’s smelter in Chalmette, which once employed 2,700, closed in 1983. And the Avondale yard, where 26,000 jobs existed at its peak on the West Bank, finally shut in 2014.

At one time, the New Orleans waterfront supported 8,000 workers. Today’s ILA Local 3000 has about 500 members, with more than 80 percent of them African-American men, Magee said. In 1980, the Black ILA Local 1919 and white Local 1418 combined to become Local 3000. Waterfront business shrank in the early 1980s, and Magee worked at a steakhouse for awhile until port activity recovered. In the late 1990s, however, the Port of New Orleans began using gantry cranes to unload containerized cargo, and jobs have been lost to automation since. Today’s ILA 3000 positions mostly require motor operation, and members must have Occupational Safety and Health Administration certifications.

“We have fewer longshoreman now but these jobs still offer good pay, benefits, the ability to support a family and buy a home,” Magee said. “I’ve seen former prisoners, who got TWIC cards with TSA waivers, become longshoremen and completely turn themselves around to be productive members of the community.” The Transportation Security Administration requires Worker Identification Credential cards at the port.

Where can Black men look for jobs in greater New Orleans? The big employers now are the area’s hospitals, universities, the City of New Orleans, the U.S. Postal Service, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, the National Finance Center, Hilton-New Orleans Riverside, Harrah’s New Orleans Hotel & Casino, Boh Brothers Construction and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Tourism, restaurants, rebuilding, and truck and water transportation are big sectors. In neighboring parishes, petrochemical plants and refineries are huge employers.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, high-paying local jobs are in management; engineering and architecture; and legal and medical fields. Education and construction wages fall somewhere in the middle, while food preparation and serving, and personal care are the lowest paying. In its last occupational employment and wages report, the BLS didn’t break out New Orleans-Metairie tourism jobs, which pay on the low side, especially at entry levels.

Under former Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s strategy to create Opportunity Centers, community groups prepared and trained disadvantaged job seekers. “Together, from 2015 to 2017, JOB1, Goodwill Industries, STRIVE NOLA, Total Community Action and the Urban League of Louisiana equipped over 800 job seekers, 68 percent of whom were African-American men, with the tools needed” for long-term employment and success, Ashleigh Gardere, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the New Orleans Business Alliance or NOLABA, said last week. NOLABA is a public-private partnership.

Through the Anchor Collaborative, a Landrieu initiative, local institutions offered employment and other opportunities to disadvantaged job seekers and businesses. Gardere, a former senior advisor to Mayor Landrieu, said 845 people, including 546 African-American men, have found jobs through the Opportunity Centers and the Anchor Collaborative.

With a First Source initiative to hire locally and efforts by the Opportunity Centers, over 400 people have found work on the North Terminal’s construction project at Louis Armstrong International Airport since 2016, she said.

Last week, as incoming Mayor LaToya Cantrell took office, City Hall declined to comment on Black male unemployment.

As for the future, Ravi Bates doubts discrimination will end any time soon. “We must face it and demand fair treatment,” he said. “Business people can provide opportunities, such as internships, to our Black kids. We have to start early and mentor boys.”

“When a young Black male asks questions about my profession, I remember being in his shoes,” Bates said. “Some doors opened for me, but just as many closed. My door will always be open.”

This article originally published in the May 14, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.