Black unemployment fell in April 2023 to an all-time low since federal officials started recording the data. But there’s an asterisk attached to the record.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on May 5 that the unemployment rate for African Americans declined to 4.7 percent last month, marking the first time that the rate has fallen below the previous low of 5 percent in March. At the same time, though, the Black worker participation rate also declined.

Overall, the employment rate in April rose by 253,000, causing the unemployment rate to inch down to 3.4 percent from 3.5 percent in March, a half-century low. White unemployment was 3.1 percent in April, largely unchanged from 3.2 percent last month.

Labor force participation, which measures the number of people actually seeking work, explains part of the reason for the decline in Black unemployment, CNBC reports.

The labor force participation for Black workers declined in April to 63 percent from 64.1 percent in March. A closer look at the numbers also show that there was a sharp decline for Black male labor participation, from 70.5 percent in March to 67.8 percent in April.

Those figures suggest that there are unemployed Black workers who simply gave up looking for a job.

The unemployment rate is a measure of workers in the labor force who do not currently have a job but are actively looking for work, according to the Economic Policy Institute. People who haven’t searched for work in the past four weeks are not included in this measure.

“It’s kind of a weird mixed message. But again, looking at the longer-term trend, it’s still fairly stable and steady with what we’ve seen in the last several months.” Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy, told CNBC.

Despite the labor force participation decline, many economists point to the bigger picture of the closing gap between the Black and White unemployment rate.

Historically, the Black unemployment rate has been twice the White unemployment rate since 1972 when employment data was disaggregated by race, according to the Center for American Progress. This 2-to-1 gap has largely remained steady for decades, which the think tank blames on structural racism.