More women continue to exit US workforce than enter it

The latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the US revealed that more women continued to exit, rather than enter, the workforce. 

Around 165,000 fewer women had jobs, or were actively looking for work in April than in March. The number of men in the labour force increased by 355,000. Although last month’s data shows a marginal improvement in the rate of unemployment for adult women (from 5.7% to 5.6 %); this reflects women giving up on job search, rather than real improvements in employment, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR).

BLACK & HISPANIC WOMEN WORST HIT

Black and Hispanic women continue to be particularly severely impacted by unemployment, confirmed IWPR. The rate of unemployment for Black women is 1.8 times higher than White women’s (compared with 1.7 times in March); and the rate for Hispanic women is 1.6 times higher. Hispanic women’s rate of unemployment increased by 0.2 percentage points (from 7.3 to 7.5 %). Black women’s unemployment is highest among all women; and decreased only marginally (from 8.7% to 8.6%). Asian women’s unemployment (seasonally unadjusted) rose from 5.7% to 5.9 %, and White women’s fell from 5.0 to 4.8%.

“We were hopeful that the economy was on an upswing and would see significant employment gains. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Women’s unemployment remains unchanged signalling the need for investments in job creation in hardest hit sectors and childcare,” stated IWPR’s President and CEO, C Nicole Mason. “Women of colour, Black and Latina women specifically continue to be disproportionately impacted by job losses and long-term unemployment.”

“The economy cannot re-start itself,” added IWPR’s Ariane Hegewisch. “It’s like a wheelbarrow. Government investment is needed to give it a push.”