Jobs

Two steps forward, one step back. That’s the story of the recovery for women.

Our analysis of April’s monthly jobs data brought fairly positive news for women, who gained 73 percent of the 115,000 jobs last month, the largest share of monthly job gains for women since the start of the recovery. But the total monthly job gains in April were the lowest in 2012. And the story for women during the recovery overall isn’t as rosy.

Women have gained only 16 percent of the nearly 2.5 million jobs added during the recovery, and their slow gains are driven largely by public sector losses. In fact, for every two jobs women gained in the private sector during the recovery, they lost one in the public sector. Men also have lost public sector jobs during the recovery, but their public sector job losses are smaller both in absolute terms and relative to their private sector job gains, as the chart below shows.

Other fast facts you should know:

• Unemployment rates dropped slightly. April brought a slight decrease in the unemployment rate to 8.1 percent overall. Men’s unemployment rate also dropped slightly, to 7.5 percent. However, the unemployment rate for women held steady at 7.4 percent. The decreases in the unemployment rates are largely due to people leaving the labor force.

It’s the first Friday of the month and we’re back with our analysis of this month’s jobs data. While the recovery isn’t yet in full swing for women, March’s jobs numbers brought some good news.

Here is what you should know:

• Unemployment rates dropped. March was the first month in which adult women’s unemployment rate (7.4 percent) was lower than their 7.6 percent unemployment rate at the start of the recovery in June 2009. Adult men’s unemployment rate was slightly higher than women’s in March (7.6 percent), but was down 2.3 percentage points since the recovery began.
• Adult black women’s unemployment rate remained above their rate at the start of the recovery. In March, adult black women’s unemployment rate was 12.3 percent, still higher than it was in June 2009 (11.6 percent). The unemployment rates for single moms, adult black men, and adult Hispanic men and women were lower than at the start of the recovery, but all had unemployment rates that remained well above the national average.

Thank Senator Harkin for Working to Rebuild America

The Rebuild America Act lays out a vision of a better America for women and their families.

Now this is more like it! You and I both know that we've had to spend a lot of time playing defense to protect critical programs and hard-won rights. But while we've been on the defensive, we've also been advocating for policies that lift up and support ALL Americans and that provide a clear path to a better future.

Now our efforts are paying off. Just yesterday, Senator Tom Harkin introduced the Rebuild America Act, which would improve economic security for women and their families. The Rebuild America Act makes investments to promote widely shared prosperity and finances them in a fair and fiscally responsible way.

This type of opportunity doesn't come along every day. Join us in saying 'Thank you!' to Senator Harkin for introducing this important bill!

What kinds of prosperity are we talking about? First and foremost — jobs. The Rebuild America Act recognizes the need for quantity and quality when it comes to job creation. The bill provides funding to help states and localities hire teachers and other public service workers — an especially crucial sector for women, who have lost nearly 70 percent of the public sector jobs cut since June of 2009. It also invests in infrastructure and manufacturing — and increases support for job training and education to expand access to these jobs among underrepresented populations. Read more »

On Tuesday from 1-2pm ET NWLC’s Vice President of Family Economic Security Joan Entmacher and I will be live chatting with The Nation’s Bryce Covert about what obstacles women still face in the economy. We’ll be talking about women dropping out of the labor force, being left behind in the recovery, receiving unfair pay, and other topics. Join us and bring your questions!

A few facts to get you thinking:

1. Did you know that while women suffered 30 percent of the job loss during the recession, they’ve accounted less than 12 percent of the job growth in the recovery?

Manufacturing’s been on everyone’s lips lately.  Economists are extolling its recent growth and policy makers, both Democrats and Republicans, are suggesting we should promote it further.

But NWLC’s new report, A “Man”ufacturing Comeback:  Men’s and Women’s Employment Gains and Losses in 2011 has a few facts about manufacturing that no one’s mentioned yet:

MANuFACTuring statistic #1: In 2011 manufacturing employment increased for the first time in more than a decade, with annual average employment rising by 205,000 jobs.  Unfortunately, women did not share in these gains.  In fact, between 2010 and 2011 men’s annual average employment in manufacturing increased by 230,000 jobs while women’s dropped by 25,000 jobs.  This divergence was a change from the trend during the recession, when the declines in manufacturing employment were borne proportionately by women and men.

It’s the first month of jobs data for 2012 and January is off to a good start, according to NWLC’s number crunching this morning. The newly released jobs data for January brought some good news – drops in unemployment and job gains for both women and men this month.

Here are a few things you should know from today’s jobs data:

• Women’s and men’s unemployment is the same for the first time since the start of the recession. When the recession officially began in December 2007, the unemployment rate for both women and men stood at 4.4 percent. Over two and a half years later, their unemployment rates finally meet again – at 7.7 percent. Since the start of the recovery in June 2009, men’s unemployment has dropped 2.2 percentage points, while women’s unemployment has essentially remained flat – rising slightly from 7.6 percent in June 2009.

As we reported Friday, the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that December 2011 marked the first month with net jobs gained for women during the recovery, but their unemployment rate increased to 7.9 percent (up from 7.8 percent in November 2011 and 7.6 percent at the start of the recovery in June 2009). The data also show that the unemployment rate among teens has actually dropped 1.6 percentage points during the recovery – but it’s probably tough for teens to get very excited about their prospects when their December 2011 unemployment rate was still 23.1 percent, nearly three times higher than the overall unemployment rate (8.5 percent).

In other good-but-not-good-enough news for teens last week, President Obama announced a new initiative called Summer Jobs+, which aims to create 250,000 employment opportunities (including at least 100,000 paid positions) for low-income youth in the summer of 2012 through public-private partnerships. The urgent need for a response to the teen unemployment crisis is clear: teens lost nearly one million jobs during the recession and saw their unemployment rate rise from 16.3 percent in June 2007, the last summer before the recession, to 24.7 percent in June 2009. Overall unemployment among teens has declined only slightly in subsequent summers, and for young minority women, the recovery has been worse than the recession. Analysis by NWLC shows that black and Hispanic female teens are the only groups of teens who suffered larger increases in unemployment during the first two years of the recovery (June 2009-June 2011) than they did during the recession. Read more »

NWLC has been crunching numbers all morning on the newly released jobs data for December. The data show that women held slightly more jobs in December 2011 than at the start of the recovery in June 2009 – finally putting women into the black and making December the first month women saw a net gain in the recovery. However, women have now gained just 3 percent of the jobs added during the recovery. Additionally, despite women’s job gains, women’s unemployment rate in December was still higher than at the start of the recovery. Men’s unemployment rate dropped and is now about the same as women’s.

Read more »

Today’s jobs data seemed to have some good news – overall unemployment dropped to 8.6 percent, a level of unemployment we haven’t seen since before the start of the recovery.  However, our analysis shows some troubling trends. Despite the decreased unemployment in November, single mothers, black women, and black men saw their unemployment rise. And the reason for the drop in overall unemployment isn’t a big surge in the number of Americans finding work. In fact, more workers dropped out of the labor force last month than found jobs—and all of the workers who left the labor force last month were women and female teens.

More numbers behind the headlines:

• Public sector losses continue. Last month the public sector lost 20,000 jobs for a total of 568,000 jobs lost in the public sector since the recovery began in June 2009. Nearly 66 percent of the public sector losses over this time are women’s job losses.

At a time when the unemployment rate remains at a staggering 9% overall, young people are frustrated. Ideas are continuously being bandied across political news programs and between politicians. Unfortunately, it is rare to hear the ideas of those in my generation who may be the most affected by the lack of a real economic recovery in the long run.

Last week, alongside about 40 college students and recent graduates, I had the opportunity to attend the conference, “Jobs for Young Americans Day on the Hill” hosted by the Young Invincibles.

Commencing the day- long conference, we visited the offices of both Democratic and Republican law makers to discuss ways in which young people can obtain employment under the American Jobs Act; specifically the Pathways Back to Work Fund, which would provide industry based training for young adults, helping to prepare for long-term employment. Read more »