Jobs Picture Improves for Women and Men

“Today’s jobs data show that women are starting to share in the recovery, but they still have a long way to go,” said Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security at the National Women’s Law Center.  “Since women’s unemployment rate hasn’t improved since the start of this recovery, policy makers’ top priority should be to help create and preserve jobs for women as well as men.”    

 

During the recession, the unemployment rate for adult men increased more than for adult women; at the start of the recovery in June 2009, adult men’s unemployment rate stood at 9.9 percent, while adult women’s was 7.6 percent.  During the recovery, however, the unemployment rate for adult men dropped by 2.2 percentage points, to 7.7 percent in February 2012. Adult women’s unemployment increased by 0.1 percentage point since the start of the recovery, to 7.7 percent in February 2012.   The 7.7 percent unemployment rates for adult men and women were unchanged since January 2012, which marked the first time those rates were equal since the start of the recession in December 2007, when they were 4.4 percent. 

 

The long-term unemployment rate – the percentage of unemployed workers looking for jobs for 27 weeks or more – rose slightly for adult women last month to 44.0 percent; the long-term unemployment rate for adult men dropped slightly to 40.1 percent.  The long-term unemployment rates for both adult women and men are substantially higher than at the start of the recovery.

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