8 Asians

During this recent economic downturn there have been statistics that show that Asian Americans typically have had lower unemployment rates than other racial groups. New data from the State Employment Development Department in California shows that once an Asian American loses their job, they typically have a harder time reentering the labor force.

The data showed that in July, nearly half of all jobless Asian Americans in California had been out of work for 27 weeks or longer, compared with 40% of Latinos and 42% of whites. It’s believed that strong family and cultural ties common in Asian American communities plays a part in this continued unemployment. Workers that typically worked for companies owned by Asians, find a hard time trying to find work outside the Asian community due to lack of contacts and for some a language barrier.

Many Asian owned businesses cut employees’ hours as a first response to the economic downturn rather than let them go which helps to explains in part why the California unemployment rate for Asians is relatively low, just 9.5% in July, compared with 17.1% for blacks, 14.9% for Latinos and 12.0% for whites.