(CNSNews.com) – The unemployment rates for African Americans and Latinos both fell in March, as thousands of people gave up looking for a job during a month when the overall economy created only 88,000 jobs.
The unemployment rates for African Americans fell for the first time in 2013 to 13.3 percent from 13.8 percent in February. The rate for Latinos also fell to 9.2 percent from 9.6 percent, according to figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Friday.
However, thousands of Latino and African American workers dropped out of the labor force in March, the weakest job creation month in some time.
148,000 African Americans left the labor force in March, according to BLS, swelling the number of African Americans not in the labor force to 11.7 million.
282,000 Latinos left the labor force in March, swelling the number of Latinos not in the labor force to 12.9 million from 12.6 million in February.