According to a story on NPR, Asian Americans are less likely to be unemployed than White, Black, and Hispanic Americans. But, when they do lose a job, they remain unemployed significantly longer.
Jobless Rates by Race:
Length of Unemployment:
Why might Asians have a more difficult time finding work? Kent Wong of UCLA’s Center for Labor Research and Education explains that their extended length of unemployment can be attributed to a confluence of two realities that make their situation unique. First,about 70% of Asian Americans are foreign born and these immigrants often live in ethnic enclaves (e.g., Chinatowns) that focus on a single industry. So long as there is work in that industry, Asians can find work. But, if that industry goes south, their limited network outside of those enclaves becomes a hindrance. Meanwhile, Asians (unlike Whites, Hispanics, and Blacks) tend to be segregated by language. Wong explains that, with about a dozen languages spoken widely in the Asian American community, pan-ethnic networks can be difficult to build and maintain. This leads to extra difficulty finding a new job:
If you have a Vietnamese employee working for a Vietnamese employer in Little Saigon in Orange County, that does not transfer to an ability to get a job in Koreatown in Los Angeles…
Both residential and linguistic segregation, then, contribute to long periods of unemployment for Asian Americans.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 5
Alex — October 20, 2010
How long is 51.7%? I am used to time being measured in weeks. Thanks.
alfanje — October 20, 2010
Also, whatever the percentage means... the number is not so different from Black 50.8%.... does that not require an explanation?
Ollie — October 21, 2010
I wish you would expand on this.
Is it to be assumed that most Asian workers immigrate pre-hired for a job? How do they get jobs like at a Vietnamese restaurant once, and then fail to get another one?
And just to clarify, these stats are just for the US right?
Ike — October 21, 2010
Ohaii... I'm a second-generation Asian-American, and I'm unemployed. I'm a recent graduate, so I don't know if I'm counted into the statistics. One thing that has really impacted me is the lack of networking connections. Non-Asians (esp. whites) are more likely to have a family member or a family friend with some clout in a company who can get you hired. Because of a combination of language barrier, discrimination, and just being a minority, there are fewer viable networking connections for Asian-Americans.
Also I keep getting asked if I'm a U.S. Citizen, so I wonder if sometimes my resume just gets tossed because they see an Asian name and aren't sure.
Asian Immigration and Linguistic Segregation | The LingEducator Blog — February 11, 2011
[...] Ethnic Enclaves, Linguistic Segregation, and Asian Unemployment » Sociological Images. [...]