More than half of the new jobs added to the economy last month went to women.
MarketWatch says 99,000 of the 175,000 non-farm jobs were filled by women. That includes 55,000 jobs in professional and business services, 24,000 in education and health services and 14,000 in the hospitality sector.
Longer-term trends show that women’s share of employment gains is flattening out at about 50% — a reasonable level given that women represent almost half of the workforce, according to government data. Over the 12 months through February, women’s nonfarm employment rose by 1.07 million jobs, half of the total U.S. gain of 2.16 million. A couple of years ago, women accounted for just 37% of annual job gains.
What’s going on? During the “hecession,” also less-rhymingly known as the “mancession,” men lost the lion’s share of jobs, flooding the labor market with unemployed workers looking for a new spot. So it makes sense that earlier in the recovery, they made up a larger share of employment growth, said Katherine Gallagher Robbins, a policy analyst at the National Women’s Law Center.
