More than half of all of African-Americans and other non-Hispanic blacks in New York City who were old enough to work had no job at all in 2012, according to an analysis of employment data compiled by the federal Labor Department

And when black New Yorkers lose their jobs, they spend a full year, on average, trying to find new jobs — far longer than New Yorkers of other races. The dim prospects have caused the number of blacks in the city characterized by the Labor Department as “discouraged workers” — those who have given up looking for jobs after long-term unemployment — to triple since 2008, before the recession hit, the numbers show. Four years ago, there were about the same number of discouraged blacks and whites in the city. But since then, the number of discouraged black workers has grown to almost 40,000, from about 13,000, while the number of discouraged whites increased to about 22,000, from about 12,000. Fewer than half — 49.2% — of all black women of working age in the city had jobs in the year that ended in May 2012. That was about the same rate for black men in the same period, as well as in the first four months of 2012. That less-than-half measure in a statistic known as the employment-to-population ratio covers all black New Yorkers, whether they are seeking work or not. It is down from 55% in the 12 months that ended in May 2008, when the city’s economy was still in high gear. Nationally, about 53% of all blacks and 60% of whites are working.