Black Women in the Public Sector Saw Large Employment Losses in 2025

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) recently shared data revealing that Black women’s employment rate by 1.4% percentage points, to 55.7%, in 2025.

In a statement detailing 2025 unemployment rates among a number of groups, the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit think tank called this drop “one of the sharpest one-year declines in the last 25 years.”

The decreases among Black women were most notable among college graduates and public sector workers, according to EPI, which noted that most of the public sector job losses were in federal government.

With regard to college graduates, the institute described the large employment losses and labor force departures as “a direct consequence of the Trump administration implementing massive federal layoffs and buyouts over the last year, a sector where nearly half of Black workers have a bachelor’s degree or higher.”

Among Black men and white women, the decrease in employment was no more than 0.5 percentage points each, according to the EPI, which noted that employment rose slightly for Hispanic (+0.6 percentage points) and Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) women (+0.4 percentage points).

At 55.7%, Black women’s employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) was well below the most recent peak of 57.8% in 2023, according to EPI, which says this number reflects employment losses that started in 2024 and accelerated in 2025. These estimates are also available in EPI’s State of Working America Data Library.

“The 2025 labor market can best be characterized as faltering,” wrote Valerie Wilson, labor economist and director of EPI’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy. “Black women bore the brunt of the economic slowdown, suffering far greater employment losses than other groups of women or Black men.”