Women unemployed at higher rate than men during pandemic

Unemployment benefits form
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“We saw the unemployment rate among men jump to 9.7%. Unemployment rates among women jumped 12.6%,” explained Dr. Elizabeth Paulin, an associate economics professor at La Salle University.

So why were unemployment rates among women higher?

“It all has to do with the fact that the sectors most affected by this recession are the sectors that employ a large number of women, those sectors being leisure and hospitality,” she said. 

Paulin said 40% of the jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector disappeared from February to May. 

During the Great Recession of 2008, men’s jobless rates were higher because construction and manufacturing — a traditionally male bastion — was hardest hit, she explained.  

She said Pennsylvania and New Jersey both have high rates of unemployment right now, and that is in part to the caution being exercised by the state governors. However, other states that are moving faster to reopen are seeing lower levels of unemployment.