The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States of America released the final jobs report of 2020, and the National Women’s Law Center provided an analysis of the hazardous year. One hundred forty thousand people from the U.S workforce got jobless, and 156,000 Women lost jobs. However, men got a net 16,000. It must be pointed out that women are the only ones who lost their jobs in the labor market’s first month when this pandemic started in May.
As Statistics show, Women had more positions than men by a slim margin in December, but there is no doubt that at the beginning of 2020, more than 5 million jobs were lost by them. Worth pointing out that the most considerable amount of jobs, 156,000 jobs, were lost in December, showing how difficult it is for women to stay employed in the USA’s labor market.
Forbes got the comment from Claire Ewing-Nelson, she is the author of the NWLC analysis, and she mentioned that the main problem is long-term unemployment, as 40% of those unemployed women have no jobs for more than six months. “It’s not just that women are losing jobs; it’s that they lost those months ago and haven’t been able to find more work.” – She added. According to her, almost 2.1 million women are not even looking for a job due to this pandemic situation.
Overall, the unemployment rate for women in the United States is 6.3%. The reality is harsher for women of color, as 8.4% of Black women have no job, and the percentages rise for Latinas, as 9.1% of them are unemployed today.
In December, 49.7% of all USA nonfarm employees were women, as for January, the percentage rose, and it became 50.04%, worth noting, this is an improvement if we compare it to May, 49.2%. Tara Sinclair, who is an associate professor of international affairs and economics at George Washington University, mentions that the last time the USA had 49.2% was back in 2008.
Even though the BLS data considers only the American labor market, the situation in other countries is similar, and it can be proved by the finding of the International Monetary Fund, which states that “demand for jobs for women has fallen disproportionately more than for men.”