Dive Brief:
- Black women in the U.S. suffered greater employment losses than other groups of women or Black men in 2025, and some of the largest losses were among college graduates and public-sector workers, according to new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank.
- Black women’s employment rate fell by 1.4 percentage points to 55.7% in 2025, representing one of the sharpest one-year declines in the last 25 years, per the research.
- The employment-to-population ratio for Black women with bachelor’s degrees fell by 3.5 percentage points over the last year, representing “a much larger decline than any other education category, including those who are not college graduates,” the report said. The labor force participation rate for Black women with bachelor’s degree was also down 2.3 percentage points in 2025.
Dive Insight:
The employment-to-population ratio for Black women in 2025 was well below the most recent peak of 57.8% in 2023, the research said, adding that this drop reflected employment losses that began in 2024 and then accelerated. Last year’s decline included both exits from the labor force and rising unemployment among remaining job seekers. Overall, the rate at which Black women participated in the labor force fell from 60.6% in 2024 to 59.7% in 2025, while the unemployment rate rose year over year from 5.8% to 6.7%.
While there was a net increase in private-sector employment for Black women in 2025, those jobs were primarily in the growing education and health services industry. By contrast, there were net losses in six of the 12 major private-sector industries, including manufacturing, financial activities, professional and business services and other services.
Researchers said in the report that the months ahead might provide clearer answers as to whether the losses were “an early indication of more widespread job losses to come” or possibly “casualties of anti-equity backlash in action.”
For example, employment losses and labor force departures among Black women college graduates “were a direct consequence of the Trump administration implementing massive federal layoffs and buyouts over the last year,” according to the report, which noted that this was a sector where nearly half of Black workers have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Black men saw a net gain in the total employment in 2025, however. Black men also saw a significantly smaller decline in federal government employment and “relatively fewer industry-specific private-sector losses,” the report added.
