Women make job gains in February

"It is especially troubling that policymakers are undermining progress by allowing program cuts that threaten not only the economic and job security of vulnerable families, but of the entire country," said Joan Entmacher, a vice president for the National Women’s Law Center.

"Congress can stop these senseless cuts and replace them by closing tax loopholes and making smart investments in our future.”

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"While February showed some welcome gains, it will take many months of job growth at this level simply to make up for the job losses during the recession, much less to restore full employment," Entmacher said.

In the past 12 months, women have gained 931,000 of the 2 million jobs added by employers, according to IWPR.

More than 95 percent of women’s jobs growth in February was centered in three sectors — professional and business services (32,000 jobs), education and health services (24,000) and retail (21,000). They also picked up 10,000 jobs in leisure and hospitality, according to the NWLC's analysis.

However, women lost 4,000 jobs in government in February.

Since the start of the recovery in June 2009, women have lost 462,000 public sector jobs, while men have lost 280,000, according to the NWLC.

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However, apart from this recession, adult women have not seen unemployment rates this high in nearly 30 years, NWLC said.

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The unemployment rates for adult black women and adult Hispanic women rose slightly in February, while rates for adult white women, adult white men, adult black men, adult Hispanic men and single mothers declined, according to the NWLC.