Women’s unemployment rate continues to decline; slightly less than half of job gains go to women, NWLC analysis shows

(Washington, D.C.) Adult women’s unemployment rate declined to 6.5 percent in May, the lowest level since January 2009, but still more than two percentage points higher than at the start of the recession in December 2007, according to new analysis by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) of data released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This decline occurred in a month of modest growth where the economy added 175,000 jobs, 47 percent of which were jobs filled by women.

“At this pace, it will take until 2022 to close the jobs gap,” said Joan Entmacher, NWLC Vice President for Family Economic Security, according to estimates by the Hamilton Project. “Congress needs to stop the sequester and austerity policies that are slowing the economy and start investing in the creation of good jobs now and for the future.”

The “jobs gap” measured by the Hamilton Project is the number of jobs that the U.S. economy needs to create in order to return to pre-recession employment levels while also absorbing the people who enter the labor force each month.
 

Women’s largest job gains in May were in private service industries: professional and business services (+33,000), private education and health (+15,000), and leisure and hospitality (+15,000). Women’s only losses were in financial activities (-8,000). Men’s largest job gains were in leisure and hospitality (+28,000), professional and business services (+24,000), and retail trade (+17,600). Men suffered their largest losses in manufacturing (-8,000), transportation and warehousing (-7,400), and the public sector (-4,000).

The public sector overall lost 3,000 net jobs in May, but the federal government – a sector likely to be hit hard by the sequester – lost 14,000 jobs last month. Men bore the brunt of public sector losses in May, but since the start of the recovery in June 2009 women have suffered the majority of public sector job losses – 435,000, compared to 302,000 for men. Public sector job losses have dramatically slowed the recovery, especially for women, wiping out one in every five private sector jobs gained by women and about one in every twelve private sector jobs gained by men.

Adult women’s unemployment rate declined 0.2 percentage point in May, while adult men’s increased 0.1 percentage point. The unemployment rates for adult black women and single mothers declined in May, but adult Hispanic women saw their rate increase.

Nearly 11.8 million Americans are unemployed; almost 4.4 million have been jobless for six months or more.

“While Congress is allowing the sequester to continue – cutting jobs, wages, and vital supports for families—millions of Americans are still struggling, unable to find work or finding only part-time or low-wage jobs,” added Entmacher. “It’s time for lawmakers to wake up and realize that a misguided focus on reducing the deficit—which is already shrinking—is holding America back.”

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