Women Recovering Jobs Lost During Recession As Fast As Men And They Are Getting Paid More Than Earlier

The job recovery, however slight, always seemed to favor the men and of the total jobs that fought their way back from the recession men recovered more of their lost jobs as compared to the women.

New numbers indicate that women are also clawing their way back in the workforce and that the work recovery is becoming more balanced between the two genders and that it is not lopsided in favour of the men.

Over the past half a year, women have added 300,000 jobs and in September both men and women, at 57,000, gained similar number of jobs.

Advocates for jobs for women and those who were expressing apprehension that even jobs that were, pre-recession, held by women were going to men post-recession are energized by the new numbers with Joan Entmacher, vice president of family economic security at the National Women’s Law Center confirming that the last year was good for job recovery for the women.

She said that even though the women are still lagging behind the men as far as job recovery is concerned, they have recovered 32 percent of their lost jobs, compared to the 43 percent regained by the men.  This of course can be attributed to the fact that the private sector is making a faster recovery than the public sector.

According to Entmacher some of the private sector gains are coming to the women and they are gaining from new jobs in the education and health services in the private sector. She said that for every job that the women lost in the public sector they are gaining three in the private sector.

This bit of news also spelt good news for President Obama as he enters the last stretch of the election marathon. It helped him refute Gov. Romney’s claims, during the second debate, that under President Obama nearly 600,000 women lost their jobs and during his Presidential terms 3.5 million more women fell into poverty.

The new figures showed that, whereas the governor would have been right had the debate been held a couple of months earlier, the new figures put women jobs in a somewhat better light.

Women tended to lose more jobs, because the government was, faced by shortage of funds, shedding jobs in the public sector where women made up almost 60 percent of the workforce. They reduced funding, subsidizing child care programs that seriously curtailed efforts of poor women seeking to retain their jobs.

Schools, were more women than men were employed saw massive job cuts saw them losing jobs at a more alarming rate than their male counterparts.

The governments have finally begun to stop the job losses and Labor department numbers show that between July and September nearly 80,000 jobs were added.

Women have fared better than the men when it comes to wages. Their wages in median weekly earnings have increased from $667 in 2008 to $684 in last year. The male’s wages have remained dormant at around $834.

The reason why wages have increased for the women is attributed to their finding employment in industries that offer higher salaries and that they are also becoming more qualified which entitles them to better pay.

However, what is still cause for worry is that there is a consistent rise in the number of women joining the ranks of the poor. From 22.1 million in 2008 they upped to 25.7 million in 2011.

The growth could take another blow, if the projected federal cuts in January become an actuality, women jobs could face the brunt of fresh government economizing and lessened financial support to child care programs. Cuts to public sector jobs and withdrawing of job-supports are the real fear that could be a serious impediment to progress for women at the workplace.