NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The unemployment rate for blacks fell more than 2 percentage points last month to its lowest level since March 2009.
The drop puzzled economists, who cautioned that it’s too early to say that a job market recovery for blacks is underway. The rate for African-Americans didn’t budge at all in 2011, ending the year at 15.8%. The overall unemployment rate fell nearly a percentage point last year.
But even at 13.6% for January, the unemployment rate for blacks is still far higher than the rate for other racial and ethnic groups, as well as the nation as a whole.
The white unemployment rate came in at 7.4% and Asians at 6.7%, both inching down a tenth of a percentage point. Latinos had a 10.5% unemployment rate, down five-tenths of a point. The national unemployment rate dropped to 8.3%, from 8.5%.
The rate for black men, women and teens all fell last month.
The improvement may be due to warmer-than-usual weather, which allowed construction projects to proceed in January, said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank. Also, the revival of the manufacturing sector, which employs many African-Americans, likely helped lower the rate.
Monthly jobless numbers, however, can jump around a lot, cautioned Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group. Therefore, it’s not indicative of a trend yet.
“Let’s wait and see because it’s such an anomalous drop,” she said.
Shierholz also noted that despite the plunge, blacks still have a much tougher time finding work.
“The larger story doesn’t change,” she said. “Blacks have been hit harder by the downturn and its aftermath.”
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