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Jobs in leisure and hospitality have not yet returned to their pre-pandemic levels.
April was the all-time high for the employment rate of women in their prime working years.
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of women between the ages of 25 and 54 who are in the labor force increased by 0.3 percentage points to 78% last month.
After going through a “she-cession” during the pandemic, women’s labor force participation has recovered recently and is once again making historically significant advances in the labor market.
Before the pandemic, women’s rates of labor force participation increased more quickly than those of men due to the rapid growth of female-dominated industries like healthcare and child care, the significant increase in women’s educational attainment, and the increased penetration of women into fields like construction, agriculture, and maintenance that have historically been dominated by men.
Other post-pandemic changes, such as greater work flexibility and robust employment increases in traditionally female-dominated sectors like health care, have also contributed to the acceleration of the trend.
Better labor force participation, according to Comerica Bank senior economist Bill Adams, was one of the primary causes of the total unemployment rate’s slight increase to 3.9% in April.
“The employment-population ratio for workers ages 25–54 was near the highest since 2022, and for workers ages 16–24, it was near the highest since 2008,” Adams stated in a Friday note.
However, the percentage of workers aged 16 and over who are in the labor force remained constant at 62.7%, approaching its peak from the pandemic. Since 2000, there has been a decrease in labor force participation rates as a result of demographic changes, notably the aging of Baby Boomers. Early retirements, fatalities, long-term COVID, and caregiving obligations are some of the pandemic’s aftereffects.
