Asian-Americans hit hard by job losses in New York, raising questions of racial discrimination
- More than 195,000 self-identified Asians have recently filed initial unemployment claims in the state, about 56 times the 3,500 during the same period last year
- Some businesses in New York’s Chinatown started to complain in February about 50 to 70 per cent drops in revenue, according to a local association
In the six weeks ending May 9, more than 195,000 self-identified Asians – Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, among others – have filed initial unemployment claims in the state, about 56 times the 3,500 during the same period last year, according to New York State Department of Labour data.
The jump was by far the biggest percentage increase compared with any other racial group. In comparison, jobless claims filed by Hispanic and Latino workers jumped 16 times, white workers 15 times and black workers 11 times in the same period. Overall, they went up 16 times for the total population of 19 million residents in the state.
“What’s different about this crisis is it really hit leisure, hospitality and retail establishments hard,” said Erica Groshen, a visiting senior scholar at Cornell University’s ILR School, which focuses on work and labour issues.
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“These industries employ people without high school degrees. New York City has a very high concentration of recent Asian-American immigrants, with a higher proportion than the national average that do not have college degrees and worked in those industries,” said Groshen, who was formerly commissioner of the US Bureau of Labour Statistics.