LABWC Leads Effort to Reduce Black Unemployment Rates
LA Sentinel Article by Xennia Hamilton , Contributing Writer, April 30, 2026
The current unemployment rates indicate a troubling trend of Black workers facing a rise in unemployment. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for Black people is 7.1%. Although this is lower than last year’s end rate of 7.5% in December of 2025, the rate is still very alarming and almost double of the rate for white counterparts.
The Los Angeles Black Worker Center (LABWC) aims to fight back against high unemployment rates for Black Americans through their Charter Reform Campaign, which includes six recommendations for Los Angeles’ City Charter.
The recommendations are:
Modernize Hiring & Testing — replace biased exams with skills-based assessments
Build a Public Service Career Pipeline — Charter-mandated pipeline can connect internships, community programs, and pre-apprenticeships directly to permanent city jobs.
Create Independent Oversight for Fair Hiring — Establish an Independent Equity in Civil Service Review Board made up of community, labor, and personnel to oversee testing, hiring, and promotion practices.
Prioritize Inclusive Recruitment — giving diverse demographics a fair chance to secure stable jobs.
Mandate Workforce Equity Audits — Every City department must complete an Equity Impact Audit every five years, examining their hiring, promotions, discipline, and workplace culture to identify and correct inequities.
Establish a Permanent Workforce Equity Commission — Create a Workforce Equity Commission in the Charter to oversee implementation, hold annual public hearings, and publish transparent reports on city workforce data broken down by race, gender, department, and job classification.
“We want to see change for the Black workers in the city charter,” says Terrai Traylor, LABWC member and Ready 2 Work graduate. “Changing the city’s constitution to include language that protects us is one of the ways we’re actively combating unemployment and low wages.”
In Los Angeles alone, Blacks face the highest unemployment rate at 20% with South Los Angeles seeing a rate of 22%, according to the LABWC website. The site also states that 30% of Black workers are employed in low wage industries, earning $12 an hour or less.
Jasmine Ogunjimi, another LABWC member, feels the pain.
“As a Black woman who is highly educated, I can attest to the difficulty in landing a job, despite education or qualifications,” she said. “I don’t think that it’s some sort of coincidence that in 2025, Black women were identified as the most educated and simultaneously the most unemployed.”
Ogunjimi also feels that unemployment is happening in places that are the basis for building foundations.
“A lot of these job losses are happening in public sector spaces, which we know is where the most stability has been for Black communities, historically speaking. So, when you take away stuff like benefits and long-term job security, you take away many other things, like mental health, safety, and rational thinking,” she explained.
“People start doing anything in order to survive. And then we end up becoming unhoused or get labeled as criminals. Then those same Black women who were ostracized are tasked with a burden to pull themselves out of a hole they didn’t create. It’s a sick cycle, truly.”
The unemployment rate has affected many people, a sentiment that Traylor emphatically understands.
“I think it’s sad that we’re the ones that have the lowest employment rate,” she said. “I feel like the city, the government, whoever needs to do better and try to employ those in the Black community.
The LABWC also is currently working to see changes in Los Angeles City Hall.
“We’re currently waiting to see if our recommendations will pass the city hall,” Traylor said. “At the moment, I’m actually looking forward to getting more involved in the campaign.”
