Job Market Shifts

Black women lost 91% of all women’s jobs in April. But that number isn’t the whole story — it’s just the tip of the truth. Here’s what’s “under the hood”: 1. This isn’t a fluke. It’s design. We’re overrepresented in jobs labeled essential during crisis and expendable during recovery. Admin, healthcare support, education, retail — sectors that get cut first and protect last. This is occupational segregation, and it’s doing exactly what it was built to do. 2. We were already leaking out of the pipeline. Let’s not pretend this started in April. We’ve been underpromoted, underpaid, and undersponsored — despite being the most educated demographic in the country. So when layoffs come, we aren’t just losing jobs. We’re losing hard-won ground. 3. Post-2020 performative #DEI is dead — and we’re the collateral. Many of us were hired into DEI roles or “diversity-friendly” spaces when companies wanted good press. Now, as backlash builds and budgets shrink, we’re first on the chopping block — again. This is what happens when #equity is cosmetic. 4. The economic damage is generational. 91% job loss isn’t just a stat. It’s a ripple: • Mortgage denials • Career derailment • College fund delays • Entrepreneurship on pause • Healthcare gaps This hits families, not just individuals. 5. Stop calling this a resilience issue. Resilience isn’t a fix for economic exploitation. We are not interested in masking systemic harm with individual hustle. So no, this isn’t just about job loss. It’s about power. It’s about who gets to stay. It’s about who gets protected — and who gets the short end of the stick just for taking up space. Black women are architecting a strategy that doesn’t require permission. Black women are pivoting on purpose, rebranding without code-switching, and rising without waiting for rescue. If this shook you, good. If it lit a fire under you, even better. Now let’s build something they can’t lay off. #RebrandAndRise #CareerNomadNoir #BlackWomenAtWork #StillEmployedStillAfraid #RNA #Layoffs #WorkplaceTruths #StopTheErasure #PowerToPivot #LinkedInNews LinkedIn News #hellomonday #officehours Source: Black Enterprise Magazine, May 2025 Jeffrey McKinney https://lnkd.in/eCMzUd8K

For anyone who says young college graduates aren't facing an unusually weak labor market — show them this chart. This chart tracks unemployment rate percentiles by education for workers aged 16–34, using 24-month moving averages from the Current Population Survey (2003–2026). Why percentiles? Normal unemployment rates vary dramatically across education groups. Percentiles let us compare every group on the same scale: how unusual is your current situation relative to your own history? For most of the past two decades, these lines moved together. Through the Great Recession, the recovery, the pre-COVID tightening, and the pandemic spike, education groups rose and fell roughly in sync. Starting around 2022, they diverge dramatically — and they haven't converged back. Young workers without a bachelor's degree have dropped into the low 20s or teens — historically tight conditions. Young workers with a bachelor's sit at the 63rd percentile. Advanced degree holders are at 67. That spread is very unusual. The lines used to move together. They don't anymore. What's driving this? AI is part of it — technology is compressing headcount for junior positions in knowledge-work sectors that disproportionately employ college graduates. But I think it's more than AI. The share of young people with a bachelor's degree has been growing rapidly. At some point, supply outpaces what the market needs. We may have crossed that point. Same with master’s degrees. There is a large group of thought leaders, the angels of wishful thinking, who tell us not to worry. Nothing unusual is happening right now. They are wrong. If you're a young worker with a bachelor's or graduate degree, you're facing conditions that are, by your own group's standards, soft. According to everything I hear about the class graduating next month, they will only get softer. Avoiding this hard reality is not going to help anyone. Source: Current Population Survey #labormarkets #highered #AI #futureofwork #careers #recruitment

🚨 106,000 Black Women Lost Their Jobs in April—Is Anyone Paying Attention? 🚨 In April 2025, Black women experienced the sharpest employment decline of any demographic, losing 106,000 jobs. Their unemployment rate jumped from 5.1% to 6.1%—in just one month. 📉 Employment dropped by 38,000, hitting a five-month low. 📈 And yet, labor force participation rose to 61.2%—Black women are still actively seeking work. This isn’t about talent. It’s about systemic failure. 🟥 DEI layoffs are quietly gutting Black women’s careers. Since 2020, many were hired into Diversity, Equity & Inclusion roles—roles now being eliminated with little accountability. Are Black women are paying the price for corporate backpedaling? 🟥 The federal government—a long-time employment stronghold—is shrinking. Federal jobs declined by 9,000 in April, 26,000 since January. Black women held many of these roles. 🟩 And still, they show up. Apply. Interview. Persist. 📍 Hardest hit cities? Atlanta, NYC, LA, Chicago, Dallas—where Black women are foundational in healthcare, education, retail, and services. These aren’t just job losses—they’re community impacts. 📢 This is not a fluctuation. It’s a warning. 🔥 Are diversity efforts still alive—or were they just a moment of PR? Now is the time to reinvest. Retrain. Reform. Silence is not a strategy. Shari Dunn Gillian Marcelle, PhD Samantha Katz Mike Green Elizabeth Leiba Paul Ladipo Christian Ortiz ✊🏽 https://lnkd.in/eJzWbPmr #StillRising #BlackWomenAtWork

Entry-level jobs now demand 3 years of experience! Internships are unpaid! And salaries? They won’t even cover your rent in a metro city. For years, we’ve been told, "Get a degree, and you’ll land a good job.” But the reality? It’s nothing like we imagined. 📌 41% of freshers earn less than ₹8L/year 📌 3% of freshers earn more than ₹30L annually 📌 Many freshers work 60-70 hours per week, far beyond legal limits A decade ago, companies hired freshers and trained them from scratch. They invested in their learning, skill-building, and career growth. But today? They expect freshers to be job-ready from day one. No training, no handholding; just work. Why is this happening? 1. Over-Supply of Talent: Millions of graduates enter the job market every year, but there aren’t enough jobs to absorb them all. Companies take advantage of this by offering low pay and demanding free work. 2. Skill Gaps: What colleges teach ≠ what companies need. Freshers are often underprepared for real-world work, forcing them to take unpaid internships just to gain basic experience. 3. Cost-Cutting by Companies: Hiring freshers, training them, and paying them fairly costs money. Instead, many companies look for ready-made talent, often at the lowest possible salary. 4. Changing Job Market: AI, automation, and tech shifts have made companies prioritise experienced professionals over training fresh grads. So, what can you do? 🚀Build skills beyond your degree: Certifications, side projects, and internships can make you stand out. 🚀Work on your online presence: A solid LinkedIn profile, portfolio, or even content can help you attract better opportunities. 🚀Network strategically: The hidden job market is real. Many good jobs are never even posted online. 🚀Don’t settle too fast: Negotiate your salary. Research market trends. Your first job sets the foundation for your career. No one is coming to train you from scratch anymore. If you want better opportunities, you have to create them. Thoughts?💡

The US only added 57,000 jobs last month. That's a warning--especially for minorities--particularly if you are Black. When the labor market compresses, Black workers pay a compounding tax that never shows up in the headlines--which is why I'm saying it now. The national Black-white unemployment ratio in Q1 2026 is 2.1 to 1. Meaning Black workers are more than twice as likely as white workers to be unemployed right now. We're no longer talking lagging indicators; that's our starting line. And once we lose a job — we stay unemployed longer. Black women spent an average of 18.5 weeks unemployed in September 2025. White men spent 10.3. That's more than eight extra weeks of no paycheck, no benefits, no forward motion. Two months of runway that our white peers don't have to plan for. And 322,000 Black workers have been out of work for 27 weeks or more. That is 21% of all unemployed Black Americans. One in five. Long enough to burn through unemployment insurance in most states and to absolutely unravel a household. I sat down with Karen Hunter on SiriusXM with this advice to Black jobseekers, and here's what I shared. If your emergency fund is built for six months — that math no longer maths. Triple or quadruple that savings cushion now-- not when your company sends the "hard prioritization and trade-offs" email. Today. Not because job loss is inevitable--it's not. Do it because in a market where the door closes on us longer, financial optionality is the closest thing to freedom we have. Employers who spent 2020 posting Black squares are quiet in 2026. The federal safety net is shrinking. And the private sector has not shown it can absorb the Black talent that's been displaced. So we plan for ourselves. For the full interview on the jobs numbers and jobseeker strategies you can implement today: https://lnkd.in/ekVRrBrQ — Follow me for more like this. Subscribe to The Black Guy in Marketing for the deep dives. #JobsReport #BlackJobSeekers #FinancialFreedom #CareerStrategy

Black women are now the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the United States. The numbers are exciting, but the full picture is more complicated than a headline can capture. Between 2024 and 2025, Black women-owned employer businesses grew by 13%, with revenue up nearly 6%. Businesses without employees grew at the same rate, with revenue surging 8%. Women-owned businesses overall grew at just 4.4%. But here's the context. Unemployment for Black women rose from 5.4% to 7.3% by December 2025, as federal job cuts hit them disproportionately hard. Per economist Katica Roy's analysis of BLS data, over 300,000 Black women either left the workforce or were laid off in just three months last year. This entrepreneurial boom is fueled by resilience, but also by a system that keeps falling short. Per Wells Fargo's 2025 report, Black women earn 70 cents for every dollar earned by white men. White women earn 83 cents. McKinsey & Company's 2025 Women in the Workplace report found that for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 60 Black women are promoted, compared to 82 Asian women, 82 Latina women, and 93 women overall. Labor economist Valerie Wilson told the New York Times: "It was a sharp and unique decline in employment for Black women." Therapist Krista Norris, PhD, who specializes in working with individuals of color, told Fast Company that entrepreneurship feels like a saving grace for many Black women. She says it gives them back their "agency" and "financial mobility" when the traditional system fails them, and that entrepreneurship can be a place where "cultural identity, authenticity, wellness, and purpose-driven work are embraced." Challenges remain. Black women-owned businesses still face financial barriers and fewer funding opportunities, and most are smaller sole proprietorships with limited capacity to absorb shocks. According to last year's Wells Fargo report, it could take roughly 40 years for Black women business owners to reach parity with their male counterparts. That timeline needs to change. 💎 Read the full article by Sarah Bregel in Fast Company to learn more about why Black women are leading entrepreneurship growth in the U.S. and the systemic barriers they still face. 👉 https://lnkd.in/eje7tZ6m #WomenInSTEM #GirlsInSTEM #STEMGems #GiveGirlsRoleModels —————————————————— 💜🩷💙💚 This is why representation and investment in girls and women matter. For a decade, STEM Gems has been empowering the next generation of women leaders in STEM, because when girls see what's possible, they build what's next. Learn more about our decade of impact and donate to STEM Gems here: https://lnkd.in/ed-nJVsN

Thirty years. That’s what the headlines are telling us this morning. Another 30 years before the gender pay gap is closed. On Good Morning Britain today, a contributor suggested that part of the issue is that women simply aren’t very good at asking for a pay rise. I was shocked that this was positioned as the primary argument and by a female no less. Are negotiation styles worth discussing? Of course. Confidence, sponsorship, understanding your value, these matter and coincidently I spoke about these in a post last week. But reducing a systemic economic imbalance to “women should just ask better” misses the point entirely. We restructure businesses in months. We respond to economic crises in weeks. We close supply chain gaps at pace when profit is on the line. So why do we accept three decades as the timeline for pay equity? In retail especially, women make up the majority of the workforce and a significant proportion of leadership pipelines. Yet disparities remain. This isn’t about confidence. It’s about: • Transparent pay frameworks • Clear progression criteria with development and mentorship plans • Bias in promotion and performance rewards • Caregiving assumptions baked into career trajectories • Flexible working and parental leave policies that don’t quietly penalise ambition As leaders, the uncomfortable questions aren’t theoretical, they’re operational. Are we auditing pay annually and acting on it? Are we rewarding commercial impact equitably? Are we sponsoring high-potential women at the same rate? Are we holding ourselves accountable? The gender pay gap is a structural leadership challenge. Structural challenges require leadership decisions, not 30-year forecasts. Oh and to the British Press - do better! You have the power to get the quick wins out there and adopted more widely, let's not allow it to be framed as women needing to do better please. #genderpaygap #leadership #womeninwork

🎯 Saying the Quiet Part Louder, Because I Still Don’t Think It’s Being Heard by Many Sometimes, when you're in a position where at least a few people care about what you have to say, you feel a responsibility to speak plainly. And today is one of those days for me. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been sharing updated Q2 data from our community, real findings from a network of tens of thousands trying to get hired in games. And one thing is clear: 🎓 Early career opportunities in games remain extremely limited, and stubbornly so. Now, I’m grateful for the thoughtful responses I’ve received. Many students and recent grads ask me, with reference to games roles only: “What location should I move to, Amir?” “Which functions are more in demand?” “Which companies are hiring early talent?” These are smart questions. They reflect the effort and strategy I hope everyone applies when job hunting. But here’s the thing I don’t think is landing: There is no trick, no perfect geo or niche, that will change the fact that the odds are very low for early career, not just in games, but everywhere. 📊 The U.S. unemployment rate for recent college graduates hit 5.8%, the highest level since 2021. 📊 Underemployment (graduates working jobs that don’t require a degree) affects over 40% of recent grads. 📊 Each month, I see more articles about hirers who aren't staffing early career at all anymore. This is awful, but it's reality. This isn’t just a blip. It’s a structural issue, and it’s especially acute in games, where entry-level roles have fallen far behind demand. 💬 So let me say this as clearly as I can: If you are early in your career, please don’t assume you’ll get a job in games. Assume the opposite. That doesn’t mean give up. That means diversify your approach. That means 80-90% of your effort should go to finding any job that isn’t underemployed, regardless of whether it’s in games. Talk to professionals. Mentors. Professors. Alumni. Ask: “What roles can I get with my degree and skills that would use them, even if they’re not in games?” "Do you think I need to retrain in my spot?" Build your skill set. Strengthen your base. You can keep trying for games too. This isn’t about crushing dreams. It’s about a real chance to survive. The calls to action, the stats, the stories, I share them all the time. But based on the DMs I still get from students and parents, I don’t think it’s been fully internalized yet. 👉 What I mean is people still seem to be putting a disproportionate amount of their energy into only games roles. I’m not saying this is easy. I’m not saying it’s fun. I’m not even saying that looking at other industries is easy either. What I am saying, with data, is that those who shift their focus, who put a highly disproportionate amount of effort into exploring non-games roles, are the most likely to land a stable, non-underemployed career. And that’s what I’m really focused on. With care. With respect. And always, with honesty.

John Barrows, one of LinkedIn's earliest members (#35,541!), shares hard-hitting insights on the future of sales in the AI era. With 20+ years of experience training top tech companies like Slack, Okta, Meta, Dropbox, Gong, and Salesloft. John doesn't hold back on the challenges facing today's sellers. In our conversation, he shares: 🌮 Why the "predictable revenue" model is failing 🌮 How AI is replacing traditional sales roles 🌮 The importance of building a personal brand in sales 🌮 Why cold calling still matters (but for different reasons) 🌮 How to transition sales teams through the AI revolution 🌮 The value of overseas SDRs in today's market 🌮 Why sales reps need to become "mini marketers" Listen now 👇 Youtube - https://lnkd.in/eD8PgUS5 Spotify - https://lnkd.in/eVUE-rH5 Apple - https://lnkd.in/eJui7wrb KEY TAKEAWAYS: 1. The predictable revenue model is outdated and customer-unfriendly. Today's buyers have zero tolerance for lack of value in conversations. 2. AI is rapidly replacing traditional sales tasks. Reps need to focus on what they can do that computers can't: business acumen, curiosity, and EQ. 3. Building a personal brand is crucial for sales professionals. It's about earning trust over time and being authentic, not just pushing corporate content. 4. Cold calling still has value, but more for developing grit and learning to handle rejection than for direct sales results. 5. Sales reps need to become "mini marketers," focusing on nurturing the 97% of prospects who aren't ready to buy right now.

We rank 129th out of 146 countries on gender pay gap. While equal pay ensures that men and women earn the same for identical tasks, the wage gap captures the broader disparities in earnings across sectors, roles, and lifetimes. So a physician is likely to earn more than a interior decorator, all other things being equal - if you have 20 years of experience you will earn more than someone with half of that… on average... Here are some contributing factors and solutions we can all champion: 1️⃣ Occupational Choices: A quick Google search for "best careers for women in India" surfaces predictable and lower-paying options like teaching, nursing and social media management. Compare that to men’s results—data science, investment banking, engineers, architects, and pilots. These results appear beacuse these careers are getting searched and I worry as women we often "satisfice," balancing societal and familial expectations, while men "optimize" for the highest-paying roles on day 1. It’s time for authentic conversations about these choices. Let’s guide young women to evaluate career paths based on averages, not outliers, and encourage them to aim higher. 2️⃣ Subject Selection in School: Math is often dropped too soon. Many girls give it up because they "don’t like it," but this limits access to high-paying fields like architecture and product design. Schools and parents must help students understand how early subject choices shape long-term opportunities - and that grades will only matter so much. 3️⃣ Continuous Employment: Caregiving responsibilities often push women out of the workforce. Staying employed—whether through flexible roles or reduced hours—builds future earning potential. Women, let’s have honest conversations with our managers about what we need to stay in the game. 4️⃣ Workplace Biases: Even when salaries start equally, biases creep in, slowing women’s growth over time. Transparency in pay and promotions is crucial, but so is equipping women with negotiation skills to fight for what they deserve. Role play with colleagues before your annual appraisal chats, read 'how to be effective' at these, find your path but find it. Some argue that women’s "choices" are their agency and many choose the lower paying tracks to lead fulfilling lives. But if those choices perpetuate disparities, they’re shaped by structural inequities, not freedom. The truth is simple: money is power. If we continue earning less, we’ll keep holding less power—socially and economically. We owe it to ourselves and the next generation to change this narrative. What are your thoughts? How can we address the gender wage gap in your industry? Let’s start a conversation. 💬 #futureofwork #genderequality #equalpay #wagegap