For the Netflix youngsters’s animation “Staff Sizzling Wheels,” Brandon V. Fletcher, 45, drafted storyboards, synced scripts and painstakingly drew the present’s 4 mischievous heroes’ antics body by body.
However when his firm, Noggin, a youngsters’s streaming service, was acquired by Paramount in 2024, Fletcher misplaced his senior animator job, alongside all 200 of his coworkers. A yr and a half and 143 job functions later, Fletcher mentioned he has turned from the job search labyrinth to liquidating all $58,000 of his retirement financial savings to pay down bank card debt and hire.
Prior to now, he discovered new alternatives by way of phrase of mouth, however just lately issues have modified.
“The issue is, no one else is working. That solely works when you’ve got mates at different jobs,” he mentioned.
Fletcher is considered one of greater than 100,000 unemployed Black New Yorkers struggling to remain afloat in an environment specialists say combines a rollback of diversity-boosting hiring practices, extra competitors for blue-collar jobs, company layoffs and a smooth job market.
Whereas the nationwide Black unemployment charge in Could sat at 6.6%, New York Metropolis faces an 8.8% Black unemployment charge, up half a proportion level yr over yr, in accordance with knowledge from the state comptroller. The figures level to widening labor market inequities between Black and white New Yorkers, who had been the one demographic group to make employment beneficial properties within the final yr, the state knowledge confirmed.
“White, well-educated individuals have been benefiting from the expansion that’s been there in high-wage employment and a number of the high-wage sectors, like within the well being care sector,” mentioned James Parrott, economist and senior adviser on the New College’s Middle for New York Metropolis Affairs.
Economists and specialists say an elevated Black unemployment charge, sometimes double that of the white unemployment charge, is a standard development in American labor — and is emblematic of systemic racism and structural inequity.
“Disproportionately increased charges of unemployment for Black New Yorkers is, in some ways, a relentless; it’s not a brand new phenomenon,” mentioned Jennifer Jones Austin, CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Businesses, an antipoverty advocacy group.
However the present rise in Black unemployment charges, Austin mentioned, is symptomatic of a cultural rollback of variety, fairness and inclusion, or DEI, insurance policies beneath the second Trump administration.
“It’s tied to the place we’re, the political local weather and the acceptance that it’s OK to now not attempt to construct better fairness and alternative for Black individuals and different individuals of coloration,” she mentioned.
Labor market inequality has deepened, with the New York Metropolis metro Black-white unemployment charge hole the widest amongst main U.S. metro areas, at 5.6 proportion factors as of the third quarter of 2025, in accordance with the Middle for New York Metropolis Affairs.
Los Angeles, which had the best Black unemployment charge at 9.6% in that quarter, had a smaller hole, with white unemployment at 5.4%. Different cities, together with Chicago, Dallas and Houston, had a lot smaller Black-white unemployment charge gaps.
In the meantime, in cities like Atlanta, Georgia, Provo-Orem, Utah, and Houston and Dallas in Texas, unemployment for Black individuals stays low. In recent times, those self same cities have seen substantial will increase in Black immigration. In Atlanta, which gained greater than a half-million residents within the final 5 years, a 3rd of its new residents are Black, and roughly 46% of the general inhabitants is Black, in accordance with the newest Census knowledge. Dallas and Houston have seen regular will increase of their Black inhabitants, rising by 52% in Dallas and 43% in Houston between 2010 and 2024, in accordance with the Pew Analysis Middle.
It’s unclear whether or not these Black residents moved to those cities particularly due to employment alternatives, however nonetheless, these locations appear to have absorbed the brand new residents into their labor markets properly. Within the first quarter of 2026, Texas’ Black unemployment charge sat at 6.6%, whereas the nationwide common was 7.1%, in accordance with knowledge from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and EPI.
“We’ve got a really dynamic labor market that helps individuals get into jobs it doesn’t matter what race they’re,” mentioned Pia Orrenius, a labor economist on the Federal Reserve Financial institution of Dallas, pointing to the state’s free labor rules that permit employers to rent — and hearth — with ease, the place new migrants to Texas from New York Metropolis could be buying and selling in a stronger security web for higher employment alternatives.
“This yr so far, skilled and enterprise companies, that are loads of white-collar jobs, additionally temp jobs, are up so much. We’re additionally seeing loads of job progress in well being, building, oil, and gasoline.”
In New York Metropolis, even an costly school diploma, sometimes a catalyst towards a high-paying job, is now not a surefire strategy to safe a job. For these with a bachelor’s diploma, the employment charge worsened by 3.6 proportion factors over the past yr, in accordance with the Middle for New York Metropolis Affairs’ 2026 finances outlook.
“Within the face of financial and federal funding uncertainty, corporations could also be working beneath a ‘last-hired, first-fired’ strategy,” the report said. “This strategy has traditionally disproportionately impacted Black employees.”
Following Trump’s federal layoffs final yr, by which 277,000 federal staff had been completely laid off, a report from Financial Coverage Institute economist Valerie Wilson drew the connection between the layoffs and the decline in Black feminine unemployment.
Final yr, Black girls had the best decline in nationwide employment and labor drive participation, particularly amongst these with bachelor’s levels, down 1.4 proportion factors from 57.1% in 2024. Now, Black male employment charges are falling at a sooner charge, down 1.7 proportion factors — from 60.5% to 58.8% — by way of the primary three months of 2026, pushed by non-college graduates.
“The Trump administration’s aggressive anti-equity DEI agenda may have a chilling impact on how overtly corporations pursue fairness in hiring and promotions as a result of concern of litigation or different sanctions by the federal government,” Wilson advised The Metropolis Reporter.
Youth employment general, however particularly Black youth employment, has flailed, as industries nonetheless battle to bounce again from the COVID-19 pandemic, with fissures forming in crucial entry-level roles.
“Probably the most evident instance could be retail. Retail jobs are properly under 15%, 20% of the place they had been pre-pandemic,” mentioned state Deputy Comptroller Rahul Jain. “Why is retail necessary? Retail is a stepping stone by way of industries — you don’t want, for probably the most half, a university diploma to do it.”
Different blue-collar sectors contributing to Black employment within the metropolis have additionally steadily faltered over the past three years. These embody labor-intensive fields, corresponding to manufacturing, which noticed a lack of 13,500 jobs since January, building (-11,900), transportation and warehousing (-3,400), and lodging and meals service (-18,000), in accordance with knowledge from the state Division of Labor.
Youth Charge Extremely Depressed
Black youth unemployment is especially extreme within the metropolis.
For individuals ages 16-24, 23.8% had been unemployed in 2024, 9 factors increased than pre-pandemic, and the best of all demographic teams, in accordance with comptroller stories.
Whereas town’s general youth unemployment charge has fallen 1.3 proportion factors in 2025, Black youth nonetheless face substantial hurdles in a low-fire, low-hire economic system, the place general layoffs are low, however employers are sluggish to herald new expertise. That creates very aggressive applicant swimming pools for jobs that do open up.
At a job truthful in Mott Haven final week, 24-year-old Rochelle Williams and her mom, Lillian, floated between tables staffed by staff pitching jobs in metropolis authorities. Rochelle, who graduated in December from Hunter School, mentioned she want to be a graphic designer, however got here to the truthful after unsuccessfully making use of for jobs for six months.
She mentioned she’s been shocked by the contraction — and lack of consideration paid to the problem — in the case of alternatives for the youth.
“It has been just a little bit demoralizing, particularly with no responses [from employers] as a result of not less than with rejections, you recognize it’s time to maneuver on from that job,” Rochelle mentioned.
Jain, the state deputy controller, mentioned that as extra New Yorkers expertise layoffs from white-collar roles and change to commerce professions, Black employees might really feel the squeeze.
“Black people have the next share of their occupations in these areas than they do in different office-type jobs, but when we’re seeing a better curiosity from different racial teams in a lot of these jobs, there’s extra competitors,” he mentioned.
Looking for Change
Thirty-three-year-old Alesha Buckins, who identifies as nonbinary femme, used to work as a vault processor, counting cash for safety firm Brink’s. Since getting laid off in December, she mentioned she’s submitted greater than 200 job functions however obtained little to no suggestions from employers.
Buckins determined to enroll in a photo voltaic set up program for putting in clear vitality panels and utilizing synthetic intelligence to neutralize her resume for Applicant Monitoring Methods, or ATS, in order that her resume gained’t be filtered out by probably biased algorithms.
“Most Fortune 500 corporations use outdated ATS methods which can be discriminatory in direction of individuals of coloration and minority communities; they actually filter you out,” she mentioned, including that she’s since began listening to again from employers after upgrading her photo voltaic abilities.
Some employees, like 47-year-old Harlem resident Desmond Postell, mentioned they’ve given up on their job seek for now.
Postell, who was laid off from his position as a senior human sources advisor at a grocery firm, mentioned he’s planning to maneuver to Costa Rica, the place he has household and the price of dwelling is decrease than in New York. Regardless of having each a bachelor’s diploma, and a grasp’s diploma in human sources, he mentioned he was left with a severance package deal and $28,000 of pupil debt.
“There’s no place in America traditionally for a Black man. There’s no place for us,” Postell mentioned.
Fletcher, the animator, mentioned he’s persevering with his job search and upskilling efforts in order that he doesn’t have to maneuver again to Florida, the place he grew up. He mentioned he’s transferring ahead with a way of warning.
“Generally, now I fill out functions, and I’m like, ‘Do I click on the African American field?’ Or do I not do it, simply in case, due to individuals’s biases?” he mentioned.
