Women vs. Men - Gender Imbalance Unemployment Gap

Based on NWLC calculations using today’s revised BLS data, from the official start
of the recovery in July 2009 through December 2010, men gained more than 406,000
jobs while women lost 370,000—a gap of 776,000 jobs. This gap has widened in
the new year to 804,000 jobs, as men gained 32,000 jobs in January 2011 while women
added only 4,000—just 11.1 percent of the jobs added last month. While
women lost three in every ten jobs cut over the course of the recession
(December 2007 - June 2009), they have filled fewer than one in every 20
since job growth picked up in 2010.

NWLC found that continued job losses in public sector employment were a
major contributor to the low net job growth for women in January. Of the
14,000 jobs lost in the public sector last month, women lost 10,000 (71 percent).
Over the course of the recovery, women have lost 84 percent of the 309,000 public sector jobs lost.

The dramatic drop in the overall unemployment rate in January, from 9.4 to 9 percent,
was driven by an improvement in men’s unemployment rate. Women’s unemployment
rate declined only slightly in January, from 8.1 percent to 7.9 percent, and remained
higher than women’s 7.7 percent rate at the start of the recovery. In contrast, men’s
unemployment rate dropped from 9.4 percent in December to 8.8 percent in January,
putting it a full percentage point lower than men’s 9.8 percent unemployment rate
at the start of the recovery.

http://www.nwlc.org/press-release/recovery-continues-leave-women-behind-2011-nwlc-finds National Women's Law Center