BLS Now Publishing Monthly Data for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders and People of Two or More Races

I am pleased to announce that BLS is now publishing monthly labor force estimates for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders and people who are of Two or More Races. For several years we have published a small set of annual labor market estimates for these populations in our report on labor force characteristics by race and ethnicity. But we have not published monthly estimates of the unemployment rate, the employment–population ratio, the labor force participation rate, and other key metrics for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders and people who are of Two or More Races. With the release of the Employment Situation report on September 2, 2022, we now have monthly data for both groups available back to January 2003.

The Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander category is defined as people having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. Pacific Islanders are diverse populations with different languages and cultures and include Polynesian, Micronesian, and Melanesian. Two or More Races is defined as people who identify as more than one race. Before 2003, people could identify only one race category as their main race in the Current Population Survey, the source of our data on unemployment and the labor force.

Unemployment

In February 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the overall unemployment rate for the United States was 3.5 percent (seasonally adjusted). The rate was 2.7 percent (not seasonally adjusted) for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders and 6.1 percent (not seasonally adjusted) for people who are of Two or More Races.

The jobless rate for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders peaked at 14.6 percent in November 2020, about 9 months into the COVID-19 pandemic. This was double the seasonally adjusted rate of 6.7 percent for the total population. The unemployment rate for people who are of Two or More Races peaked at 19.3 percent in April 2020, early in the pandemic, compared with 14.7 percent for all groups.

The unemployment rate has declined for all groups since their peaks during the COVID-19 pandemic. By August 2022, the overall unemployment rate for the United States was 3.7 percent. The rate was 3.8 percent for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders and 6.2 percent for people who are of Two or More Races.

Editor’s note: Data for this chart are available in the table below.

Employment

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the employment–population ratio for the United States (the proportion of the population that is employed) was 61.2 percent (seasonally adjusted) in February 2020. The rate was 67.6 percent (not seasonally adjusted) for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders and 63.7 percent (not seasonally adjusted) for people who are of Two or More Races.

The ratios for all groups declined sharply at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and have not yet returned to their pre-pandemic levels. In August 2022, the employment–population ratio was 60.1 percent for the United States. The ratio was 65.7 percent for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders and 61.3 percent for people who are of Two or More Races.

The employment–population ratio is generally higher for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders than the U.S. average. The greater likelihood of employment among Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders reflects the fact that a larger share of this population is in the 25 to 54 age range than the overall population. People in this age range are more likely to be employed than people in younger and older age groups. By contrast, from 2003 to 2016, the employment–population ratio was generally lower for people who are of Two or More Races than the U.S. average. In recent years, the employment–population ratio for people who are of Two or More Races is little different than the national rate.

Editor’s note: Data for this chart are available in the table below.

Monthly estimates give us timely measures to see how groups are faring in the labor market. However, one must exercise caution when analyzing and interpreting monthly data for small population groups. The measures for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders and for people who are of Two or More Races tend to be volatile for two main reasons. First, the estimates are based on small sample sizes. We survey about 60,000 U.S. households every month. People who identify themselves as Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders make up about 0.5 percent of the total labor force. People who identify as having Two or More Races make up about 2.2 percent of the total labor force. Because of their small sample sizes, the month-to-month change in our key economic metrics must be pretty large to be statistically significant. On average, the unemployment rate for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders must change by nearly 4 percentage points and the rate for people who are of Two or More Races must change by around 2 percentage points for the differences to be meaningful.

Second, these data are not seasonally adjusted. Seasonal adjustment is a statistical procedure used to remove the effects of seasonality from data so it is easier to see underlying trends. But not all data series can be seasonally adjusted; they must pass a battery of diagnostic tests to be fitted to a seasonal adjustment model. So far, we haven’t been able to do that for data for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders and people who are of Two or More Races, but we’ll keep evaluating them as we get more data. Because these data aren’t seasonally adjusted, it can be challenging to compare one month to the following month.

We’re also publishing quarterly estimates for Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders and people who are of Two or More Races for the first time starting this month. Because these estimates are averages of three months of data, they are somewhat less volatile.