The last couple of years have been especially difficult for women in the American labor force. According to an estimate from the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), women account for about 70% of job losses in the United States since the start of the pandemic.
Progress is being made as pandemic restrictions ease across the country, including at schools, with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting 249,000 women joining the labor force in March, accounting for 63% of the new jobs created. That still leaves, however, 872,000 women out of the labor force compared to before the pandemic, and the NWLC estimates that it would take four straight months at the March rate for women to fully recover jobs lost.
Black women have benefited the least from the Q1 recovery, but saw promising job growth in March, with the unemployment rate for Black women aged 20 and older reaching 5.5%, compared to 3.3% for total women aged 20 and older and 2.8% for white women aged 20 and older. The pandemic has also imposed additional barriers to employment to Americans with disabilities, with a non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 9.7% for women aged 16-64 in March.