Women and Men in the Recovery: Where the Jobs Are Women Recover Jobs Lost in Recession in Year Five

While the number of jobs dropped steeply, particularly for men, in the Great Recession, slow job growth has characterized the recovery. In the first two years of the recovery, men saw faster job growth than women. By the third year of recovery, in terms of share of jobs lost that were regained, women’s job growth saw pronounced gains and largely caught up to men’s. Within the recovery’s fourth year, the percentage of lost jobs regained by women overall exceeded that of lost jobs regained by men. The fifth year of recovery saw women surpass their pre-recession levels of employment, while men have not yet made up their recession job losses. As of June 2014, men had regained 90.1 percent of the jobs they lost in the recession and women had regained 136.3 percent of theirs. This job growth can be attributed to growth in the private sector, as the public sector has been contracting considerably. In the recovery, women and men have gained the most jobs in Professional and Business Services (2.8 million jobs added in the recovery), Education and Health Services (1.9 million jobs added), and Leisure and Hospitality (1.6 million jobs added). In contrast, women and men have lost the highest number of jobs in Government (686,000 jobs lost in the recovery) and Information (132,000 jobs lost). Examining industries by gender, we se