According to an Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) analysis of the March employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), as of February men hold more jobs (71,551,000) than when the recession began (70,769,000 in December 2007) seven years earlier. Due to women’s relatively stronger job growth in several of the last few years, their total number of jobs lost in the recession has been recovered for some time (69,575,000 jobs in February 2015 vs 67,581,000 jobs in December 2007 when the recession began). The overall unemployment rate decreased to 5.5 percent in February from 5.7 percent in January