Job Growth Continues in June: Private Sector Growing Faster than Public Sector in the Recovery

BLS issues corrected job numbers for women in some retail industries

WASHINGTON, July 12, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --According to an analysis by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) of the June employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), job growth continued in June with 80,000 jobs added to nonfarm payrolls. In June women gained 32,000 jobs and men gained 48,000 jobs.

Women's employment growth was aided by strong growth in professional and business services (28,000 jobs added for women) and leisure and hospitality (10,000 jobs added for women). However, jobs in government fell by 17,000 jobs among women and almost 12,000 jobs in retail trade were lost by women.

Some of this drop in retail jobs for women may be the result of corrections made to the underlying data. In the report issued on July 6, 2012, BLS corrected several data series including the number of women employed in book stores and news dealers and electronics stores.

In fact, as they did on May 25, 2012, BLS released corrected data for the past several years. The new revised data re-establish IWPR's earlier analysis that both the jobs recession and the jobs recovery occurred later for women than for men. Women's job growth has been slower than men's in the recovery because a large number of jobs in government have been lost and women work disproportionately in state and local government.

IWPR analysis of the BLS payroll data shows that women have regained 40 percent (1.1 million) of the total jobs they lost in the recession (2.7 million) from December 2007 to the trough for women's employment in September 2010. The picture looks somewhat better for men: men have regained 46 percent (2.8 million) of the jobs they lost between December 2007 and the trough for men's employment in February 2010 (6.1 million). In the last year, from June 2011 to June 2012, of the 1.8 million jobs added to payrolls, 701,000 or 39 percent were filled by women and 1,076,000 or 61 percent were filled by men. The gap between women's and men's employment is 1.8 million jobs in June.

The private sector has replaced 3.2 million jobs since the official end of the recession, but only 28 percent of these went to women. During the same period, the public sector has shed 627,000 jobs and 63 percent of these had been held by women. Overall, women attained only about one in five jobs (512,000 of 2.6 million) added to payrolls in the three years since the recovery officially began in June 2009, but in the last year women got two of every five jobs added to payrolls.

According to the household survey data reported by the BLS, the unemployment rate for women remained largely steady from May to June, increasing slightly for women aged 16 and older (to 8.0 percent from 7.9 percent). The unemployment rate for men aged 16 and older remained steady (8.4 percent). As of June, 12.7 million workers remain unemployed.

The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) conducts rigorous research and disseminates its findings to address the needs of women and their families, promote public dialogue, and strengthen communities and societies. IWPR is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that also works in affiliation with the women's studies and public policy programs at The George Washington University.

SOURCE Institute for Women's Policy Research

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