Key Findings

• March 2022 brought another month of strong payroll job growth for women, yet women’s jobs on payroll are still 1.1 million below pre–COVID-19 levels, while men’s are 473,000 below.
• The lack of recovery in child care and nursing care center jobs is holding back women’s recovery. These care jobs have seen little growth throughout the pandemic and are still 11.8 percent below February 2020 levels, compared to 1.0 percent for all payroll jobs.
• While child care, nursing care, and other low-wage sectors are falling behind in the recovery, women have gained jobs in men-dominated fields, such as construction and transportation and warehousing, where their numbers are now higher than before the pandemic.
• The numbers of Black and White women in the labor force are still substantially below pre-pandemic levels (1.6 and 1.7 percent below, respectively) while the number of Latinas and Asian women is higher (by 0.3 and 2.7 percent, respectively).
• Another month of falling unemployment brings the rate of unemployment for adult women close to pre-pandemic levels (3.3 compared with 3.1 percent). Yet, steep racial and ethnic differences remain, with Black women’s rate of unemployment almost twice as high as White women’s, and Latinas’ 1.5 times as high.