While unemployment falls, unemployment of diverse segments rises

I think a year ago many people would have claimed that the problem of bias and diversity in the United States had been solved. Ferguson and mounting instances of police bias and violence, the discriminatory behavior of fraternities in recent headlines, and other similar events have made it clear that in spite of progress made, we have a long way to go.

A March report by the Professional Diversity Network shows additional data that there are still problems with how bias impacts various aspects of our lives, including in hiring practices. According to the report, while the “overall US unemployment rate fell, unemployment for diverse Americans actually increased by 0.79% from 5.4% to 6.19%.” A stat demonstrating an increase in unemployment for diverse groups is disheartening, but there is one silver-lining here. As they say in corporate America, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” In the same way we’ve seen the critical importance of and attention solicited when companies go public with their data, the more this measurement of unemployment in diverse groups gets attention, the more we will have to answer to whether or not we are making progress. Having the metrics is the first step to following through by actually changing those numbers.