Employment rate of Somali in usa

1. What the numbers actually measure — employment rate vs. labor‑force participation

Sources use different concepts: “employed” is the share of people working, while “labor‑force participation” counts those working or actively seeking work; this distinction explains part of the apparent gap between a 58 percent employment figure for working‑age Somali Americans in a 2011–2015 survey and later claims of a roughly 69–70 percent labor‑force participation rate for Somali immigrants ^{[1] [2] [4]}.

2. National snapshots: mid‑2010s baseline and more recent community estimates

A national synthesis for 2011–2015 reported that 58 percent of working‑age Somali Americans were employed and about 5.1 percent were self‑employed, establishing a baseline of moderate employment that improved from earlier refugee settlement years ^[1]. Community‑facing compilations and advocacy analyses drawing on later American Community Survey releases and local studies report higher labor‑force participation figures — commonly around 69–70 percent — signaling progress but also reflecting different metrics and time frames ^{[2] [3] [4]}.

3. Minnesota as a focal case: higher rates, strong labor niches, but uneven outcomes

Minnesota — home to the largest Somali community in the U.S. — has historically shown higher Somali employment and self‑employment than the national Somali average, with figures such as 47 percent employed on the 2010 census in one snapshot and earlier analyses citing 62 percent employed and 5.9 percent self‑employed in the 2011–2015 period ^[1]. Local researchers and community groups continue to report labor‑force participation near 70 percent in more recent Census estimates for Somali Minnesotans, and identify concentrations of Somali workers in education, healthcare, retail, transportation, manufacturing and entrepreneurship ^{[1] [5] [4]}.

4. Gender, age and measurement caveats that shape the headline numbers

Employment patterns differ by gender and age: earlier U.S. Census data showed large gender gaps among Somali immigrants in Minneapolis — for example, one study found 65 percent of Somali men employed versus 35 percent of Somali women in 2000 — and later analyses still report notable male‑female differences and strong participation among young adults, which affect aggregate employment rates depending on the population denominator used ^{[1] [2]}. Many sources caution that values change depending on whether estimates include second‑generation people, which ACS ancestry questions are used, and how “working‑age” is defined ^{[1] [5]}.

5. Conflicting narratives and the politics of interpretation

Different organizations frame the same datasets to support divergent narratives: community groups and local economists emphasize a roughly 70 percent labor‑force participation rate and economic contributions like entrepreneurship, while some policy analyses highlight elevated poverty, welfare reliance and localized joblessness as social challenges ^{[4] [6]}. Both readings rely on legitimate data slices — the difference lies in which indicators and time windows are foregrounded, and in the implicit agenda of advocacy or policy critique ^{[4] [6]}.

6. Bottom line and limits of the available reporting

The best summary from the provided sources is that historically Somali employment in the U.S. lagged early expectations but improved substantially: about 58 percent employed in a 2011–2015 national survey and labor‑force participation figures reported by community and Census analyses around 69–70 percent in more recent years, with Minnesota typically showing higher employment and entrepreneurship rates ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}. Reporting limitations include inconsistent year ranges, different definitions (employment vs participation), and geographic concentration effects; the sources do not provide a single, harmonized 2024–2025 national employment‑rate time series for Somali Americans that is directly comparable across all claims, so readers should treat headline percentages as approximate and context‑dependent ^{[1] [2] [4]}.