ACTING SECRETARY OF LABOR, JULIE SU
by Karen Juanita Carrillo and Chris Lee, NY Amsterdam News
An August jobs report showed the U.S. adding 142,000 jobs last month, and the national unemployment rate falling slightly to 4.2 percent as 91,000 people left the labor force. Black unemployment was reported at 6.1 percent; little changed from last month. African Americans have continued relatively high participation rates after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report also offers large previous month revisions totaling 86,000 jobs as the economy continued to grow slower over the past three months, all while the financial community awaits an important decision by the Federal Reserve on interest rates.
As the nation heads into an important national election, the mediocre jobs report will not help either side. As neutral as the report was, the 142,000 figure is still a respectable number, showing that the nation’s economy is still growing steadily — though at a slower rate. Consumers, the key driver of the economy, are continuing to spend money, even as they complain about inflation. And corporate profits remain near record levels. A recession does not appear to be close.
The AmNews was granted an exclusive interview with the Acting Secretary of Labor, Julie Su, in the wake of the August report. She spoke about the labor numbers, Black unemployment, union jobs, non-traditional work opportunities, and apprenticeships.
Su said the Biden-Harris administration’s pro-union efforts remain essential and will positively impact employment opportunities for Black Americans.
“Unions are such a powerful force in decreasing racial and gender wage gaps,” she said. “When we see that unions do better, we also see that Black Americans do better.”
The labor secretary said the Biden-Harris administration’s economic policies have focused on workers and racial equity. One thing they’ve done is use grants like Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) to buttress targeted apprenticeship programs that are helping Black people—and Black women in particular —to be able to get good union jobs.
In the construction industry, organizations like Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW) in New York and the Chicago Women in Trades have received funds to help train Black women for construction industry jobs, where workers are traditionally paid well. In the August jobs report, construction added 34,000 new employment positions.
Construction and manufacturing jobs offer great opportunities for skilled workers. But being in the position to get those jobs means not being passed over because of your skin color, ethnic background, or gender. President Biden traveled to Michigan on Sept. 6 to sign the Good Jobs Executive Order, which his administration says will ensure that when the federal government puts funds toward infrastructure projects, the companies that win those contracts will be mandated to create good union jobs with “project labor agreements (PLAs), community benefits agreements, voluntary union recognition, and neutrality with respect to union organizing.”
“We know that there’s really nothing more important we can do to make sure that the jobs that are being created are leading to widely shared opportunity and that communities that have been left behind in the past are not left behind this time,” Su insisted.
“One sign that we’re moving in the right direction—and again, we’re nowhere near done with this effort—but one sign is that there’s been a long and very persistent Black-White unemployment gap. That gap still exists, but it has been closing; it’s the smallest that it has ever been. Again, we’re not going to reverse the decades of inequity and frankly systemic racism in the economy overnight, but we need to do everything we can to reverse that, and that’s what a lot of our economic policies and our focus on workers and our focus on racial equity has been about.”
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