Louisiana Weekly
- Black women are struggling to find employment in New Orleans and are being hindered by gender and race five years after Hurricane Katrina, according to two fact sheets presented last week by the Newcomb College Center for Research on Women.
In 2005, women made up slightly more than half of the New Orleans labor force (52.4%), and despite the obstacles to employment following Hurricane Katrina, women continued to be approximately half of all workers with nearly 55 percent of women over 16 years of age employed in 2008. The most significant decline in women workers was among African- Americans, echoing the greater loss of African-American women in the population of the city. Although there was a significant decline in unemploy ment following the storm, Black women continued to carry a disproportional share of the burden of unemployment.
