Unemployment

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.

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.

They're at it again. I'm sure you remember the feverish news cycle — federal unemployment insurance (UI) benefits were set to expire right before the holidays in December. House Republicans passed a bill that would slash the UI safety net (and more). At the last minute, Congress agreed to continue federal UI benefits for two months. But that extension expires in less than a month. We need your help to prevent millions of unemployed workers from losing the lifeline of UI benefits.

Tell Congress: Fully Renew Unemployment Insurance for 2012 — no cuts, no barriers to benefits!

The House Republican leadership is still pushing to dismantle UI, with drastic benefit cuts and new barriers that would prevent many jobless workers from accessing these vital benefits. Read more »

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.

One of the best cures for the post-holiday blues is the crop of new TV shows in January. One new show on ABC, “Work It”, is definitely going to boost us out of any blues – by making us see red.

According to ABC, “Work It” is: 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.

After the Thanksgiving feast, some lament how quickly the focus shifts to next round of holidays – but I have to admit I embrace it. Christmas music in the air 24/7? Fine by me. My tree is up, the house is bright with twinkly lights, and I’m thrilled to exchange my typical coffee order at Starbucks to a peppermint mocha in a bright red cup.

Sadly, I can usually count on some Members of Congress to put a damper on my holiday spirit. Just this Sunday, as I was trying to get a head start on trimming the tree, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) was on “This Week,” saying he was “terribly disappointed” that the super-committee (of which he was a member) did not agree on a deficit reduction plan along the lines of his proposal – a proposal that would cut taxes for the highest-income earners while forcing lower-income families to bear both harsh program cuts and substantial tax increases. (Needless to say, we at NWLC were not disappointed that Sen. Toomey’s plan did not win over a majority on the super-committee.) Read more »

Congressional coverage this week has focused on the continuing debate in the super-committee and the just-passed spending bill that counts tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable in school lunches. It’s hardly a wonder that Congress’s recent approval ratings have been as low as 9 percent; more people approve of turning the U.S. into a communist country than approve of the job Congress is doing.

But there really are Members of Congress who are trying to do the right thing for the country – like helping the nearly 14 million women and men who are unemployed. Last week, I wrote about the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act, which would maintain vital federal unemployment benefits for workers who have been unemployed for more than six months. And this week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced the Pathways Back to Work Act (S. 1861), a bill that would create employment and training opportunities for jobless workers, including those who have exhausted UI benefits or who have insufficient work experience or earnings to qualify for UI. (Rep. George Miller has introduced a similar bill, H.R. 3425, in the House.)

The $5 billion Pathways Back to Work Fund established by the bill includes: Read more »