Based on the September employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, women and men both gained 57,000 jobs in September, according to an analysis by the Institute for Women's Policy.
Women especially saw strong job gains in education and health services with 40,000 new jobs, financial activities with 15,000 new jobs and professional and business services with 14,000 new jobs. On average, 146,000 jobs have been added each month since January, and 43 percent of those positions have been filled by women.
Since February 2009, men can now claim a higher number of jobs. This was when the first jobs report hit after President Barack Obama took office for a net growth of 745,000 jobs as of September 2012. Women experience a job peak and job trough later than men, and still are 82,000 jobs below their February 2009 jobs number. However, their job growth has risen in the past year.
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According to the analysis, women have regained 46 percent or 1.2 million of the total jobs that were lost between the recession in December 2007 and the trough for women's employment in September 2010 at 2.7 million jobs. Men have had more job success as they have regained nearly 50 percent or 3 million of the jobs they lost between December 2007 and the trough for men's employment in February 2010 at 6.1 million jobs.
The unemployment rate for women and men who are at least 16 years old fell from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September, according to the household survey data reported by the BLS. Women age 16 and older experienced an unemployment rate drop to 7.5 percent from 7.8 percent while the unemployment rate for men age 16 and older diminished to 8 percent from 8.3 percent. In September, 12.1 million workers were still unemployed.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act found in August that employment grew by 200,000 jobs to 1,200,000 jobs during the second quarter of this year, and the unemployment rate dropped by 0.1 percentage points to 0.6 percentage points.
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