University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, Storrs, CT 06269, USA.
Demography. 2010 Feb;47(1):227-47. doi: 10.1353/dem.0.0086.
Studies have tested the claim that blacks are the last hired during periods of economic growth and the first fired in recessions by examining the movement of relative unemployment rates over the business cycle. Any conclusion drawn from this type of analysis must be viewed as tentative because cyclical movements in the underlying transitions into and out of unemployment are not examined. Using Current Population Survey data matched across adjacent months from 1989-2004, this article provides the first detailed examination of labor market transitions for prime-age black and white men to test the last hired, first fired hypothesis. Considerable evidence is presented that blacks are the first fired as the business cycle weakens. However no evidence is found that blacks are the last hired. Instead, blacks appear to be initially hired from the ranks of the unemployed early in the business cycle and later are drawn from nonparticipation. The narrowing of the racial unemployment gap near the peak of the business cycle is driven by a reduction in the rate of job loss for blacks rather than increases in hiring.
研究通过考察相对失业率在商业周期中的变动，检验了在经济增长时期黑人是最后被雇佣、在衰退时期是最先被解雇的这一说法。由于没有考察失业者进入和离开失业状态的周期性变动，因此从这类分析中得出的任何结论都只能视为初步结论。本文利用 1989 年至 2004 年期间相邻月份的“当前人口调查”数据进行匹配，首次详细考察了处于工作年龄段的黑人和白人男性的劳动力市场变动情况，以检验最后雇佣、最先解雇假说。本文提出了大量证据，证明随着商业周期的减弱，黑人最先被解雇。但是，没有证据表明黑人是最后被雇佣的。相反，黑人似乎在商业周期早期从失业者中被最初雇佣，而后来则从非劳动力中被雇佣。在商业周期接近顶峰时，种族失业率差距的缩小是由于黑人的失业损失率下降，而不是雇佣率上升所致。
