A recent study on unemployment in Wichitafound that a person receiving unemployment benefits in Wichita is 2.3 times more likely to be white than of a minority race. The study also found a disproportionately higher level of minority workers receiving benefits when compared to the overall workforce.
The report was conducted by the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at WSU. It compares data from the first quarter of 2016 to numbers from the second quarter. Researchers found that minority workers, not including Hispanics and Latinos, account for 16 percent of the labor force and 27 percent of unemployment insurance beneficiaries. The data also shows that men in the Wichita area are 1.3 times more likely to receive benefits than women. That's down nearly 2 percent from the beginning of the year.
In the second quarter of this year, two industries accounted for a third of unemployment beneficiaries in the Wichita area. Those industries were manufacturing and construction.
The report also found a nine percent overall decrease in the number of people without jobs from the first quarter to the second.
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