Although the U.S. unemployment rate declined in June to 3.6 percent, the same rate it was before the COVID-19 pandemic,  Black unemployment has increased for the second consecutive month, Reuters reports.

Per the latest data, Black unemployment jumped 6.0 percent last month which is nearly twice the rate of White employment — which is currently at 3.1 percent. The rate is the highest since it was 5.6% in August 2023, even as the total jobless rate fell to 3.6 percent. Additionally, Black Americans make up almost 90 percent of those who are unemployed in the U.S. since April.

According to the report, Black Americans were the only major racial group to experience a decline in employment over the past three months. After setting a record high in March, 635,000 jobs have been erased. Along with declining job rates, Black Americans were the only major racial or ethnic group “to experience a net drop in employment over the past three months.”

In April, Black unemployment dropped 4.7 percent, the lowest since federal officials started recording the data and it was the first time that the rate has fallen below the previous low of 5 percent in March. But these numbers also reveal that Black worker participation in the labor force is rapidly decreasing.

The labor force participation for Black workers declined in April to 63 percent from 64.1 percent in March with Black male labor participation, dropping from 70.5 percent in March to 67.8 percent in April. The recent figures suggest a number of unemployed Black workers who have stopped searching for jobs

According to Carmen Sanchez Cumming, a research associate at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, the next round of payroll data will determine if the trend is developing with the current rise of Black unemployment.

“Sometimes we are cautious about saying a one-month change is very significant because sometimes the data is noisy, but a rule of thumb is three numbers is a trend,” Sanchez Cumming said. “If the employment level for Black workers has gone down pretty significantly for the last three months, then that is a red flag.”

According to the Center for American Progress, the Black unemployment rate has been twice the White unemployment rate since 1972 when employment data was classified by race. As the chasm has remained in place for almost 50 years, the advocacy organization views structural racism as the major contributing factor.