Women fared better in the job market

Women posted their best month of job gains in April since the recession ended nearly three years ago, a factor that could help boost their support for President Obama. 

While women workers have largely held their own through the recession, an analysis by the National Women’s Law Center shows that they gained 73 percent of the 115,000 jobs added in April — the largest share of monthly job gains for women since the start of the recovery in June 2009, based on data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"Today’s data show that while most of April’s modest job gains went to women, there’s still a long way to go to reach a full recovery for women and men," said Joan Entmacher, vice president for Family Economic Security at the NWLC. 

"This is not the time to cut back on programs that create jobs and help families get back on their feet.”

Entmacher criticized the upcoming vote on a reconciliation bill in the House Budget Committee next week that would trade automatic cuts in a congressional sequester for others to programs such as food stamps, Medicaid, funding for services for children and seniors and tax credits to make health insurance affordable.

"These measures would cripple families and the economy," she said. 

During the recovery, between June 2009 and April, women have gained only 16 percent of the nearly 2.5 million net jobs added in the recovery.

In the private sector, women gained 62 percent of the 130,000 private-sector jobs added in April and 26 percent — or 800,000 — of the nearly 3.1 million jobs added overall, according to the analysis. 

Men, who had a steeper hill to climb on the jobs front, have gained the majority of positions through the recovery, which has seen the labor market gradually healing. 

The largest job gains for women in April appeared in the professional and business services sectors, which include temporary help services, private education and health, and leisure and hospitality jobs. Women also picked up jobs in the expanding manufacturing sector. 

The public sector lost 15,000 net jobs last month, with men bearing all of the losses, while women gained 4,000 public sector jobs. 

During the recovery, the public sector has lost 601,000 net jobs — two-thirds of which (400,000) were held by women. Losses in the public sector have dragged on a more robust labor market recovery. 

The overall unemployment rate for adult women was unchanged at 7.4 percent in April, while adult men’s rate declined slightly to 7.5 percent. 

Since the start of the recovery, adult women’s unemployment rate has dropped by only 0.2 percentage points, while men’s unemployment rate has declined by 2.4 percentage points.  

The long-term unemployment rate — the percentage of unemployed workers looking for jobs for 27 weeks or longer — increased for adult women last month to 45.2 percent, while the long-term rate for adult men rose to 47.4 percent. 

The long-term unemployment rates for both adult women and men are substantially higher than at the start of the recovery, the analysis said. 

“There aren’t enough jobs for everyone who wants to work and millions of Americans are still struggling to meet their basic needs,” Entmacher said.  

Women’s substantial losses in the public sector have driven their small overall job gains in the recovery. In fact, for every two jobs women gained in the private sector during the recovery, they lost one in the public sector.

Women are nearly 50 percent more likely to work in the public sector than men, according to a Labor Department report in 2010. 

By Vicky Needham

Source: http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/economy/225541-women-fared-better-in-the-job-market-in-april