Washington, U.S.A. — New analysis released by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) of employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that, while men have seen faster job growth than in the recovery, women’s job growth sped up in the third year. Within each industry, however, women have either lost proportionately more jobs or gained proportionately fewer jobs than men over the course of the last three years.

June 2012 marks the end of three years of recovery since the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, a period that saw job gains for both women and men of more than 500,000 in several industries (Education and Health Services for women, Professional and Business Services for men and women, and Trade, Transportation, and Utilities for men).

In year three of the recovery (July 2011 – June 2012), men gained 19,000 fewer jobs than they did in year two (July 2010 – June 2011). In contrast, women gained 500,000 more jobs in year three than they did in year two.

Still, men are slightly ahead overall in terms of job growth, but women are finally beginning to catch up. As of June 2012, women have regained 38.7 percent of the jobs they lost in the recession, while men have regained 45.2 percent of the jobs they lost in the recession.

Women have either lost proportionately more jobs or gained proportionately fewer jobs than men in every industry over the course of the last three years. Even in the female-dominated Education and Health Services industry, men’s employment increased by 9.1 percent between June 2009 and June 2012, while women’s employment increased by just 4.8 percent. Still growth in this sector helped women pick up 713,000 jobs in the last three years and 64.5 percent of the 1.1 million jobs added to payrolls in the industry since June 2009.

“The recovery is finally reaching women,” said Dr. Heidi Hartmann, president of IWPR and a labor economist. “Women got more than one-third of the job gains in the third year of the recovery, much better than their share the previous year, despite the fact that women are bearing the brunt of state and local government cuts,” she said. “Economists don’t know why men seem to have a hiring or layoff advantage in every industry, but the start of a catch-up in year three is good news for women.”

For men and women considered together, over the last three years of the recovery, the largest growths in payroll numbers were seen in “Professional and Business Services” (1.4 million jobs) and “Education and Health Services” (1.1 million jobs). Men and women both lost the largest number of jobs in “Government” (a combined loss of 633,000 jobs across all three levels of government). Job loss in the public sector disproportionately affected women who lost 64.1 percent of the 633,000 jobs eliminated.

The industries with the greatest gender difference in job change were “Mining and Logging,” where men’s employment grew by 23.6 percent while women’s employment grew by 17.5 percent, and “Manufacturing,” where men’s employment increased by 4.0 percent and women’s employment actually decreased by 2.7 percent. The “Leisure and Hospitality” industry, where men’s employment grew by 4.3 percent and women’s employment grew by 3.5 percent, had the smallest gender difference in job gains.

In the three years of the recovery, women gained just over half a million jobs and men nearly a million jobs in “Business and Professional Services” (504,000 for women and 937,000 for men). While women gained more than half a million jobs in “Education and Health Services” (713,000), men gained more than a half million jobs in “Trade, Transportation, and Utilities” (613,000).

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According to an analysis of the April employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), job growth slowed in March with 120,000 jobs added to nonfarm payrolls.

In March women gained 38,000 jobs (about one-third of all jobs added) and men gained 82,000. Women’s employment growth was aided by strong growth in health care (26,000 jobs added overall) and food service and drinking places (36,900 jobs added overall). The gap between women’s and men’s employment in March is 1.9 million.

The unemployment rates remained largely steady from February to March, declining for women aged 16 and older (to 8.1 percent from 8.2 percent), and unchanged for men (8.3 percent). As of March 12.7 million workers remain unemployed.

In the last year, from March 2011 to March 2012, of the 1.9 million jobs added to payrolls, 635,000 or 33 percent were filled by women, and 1,264,000 or 67 percent were filled by men. Since October of 2009 when men’s and women’s total jobs numbers were virtually equal, women have gained 697,000 jobs, whereas men have gained 2,592,000, more than three times as many jobs as women.

Since June 2009when the recession officially ended, men have gained 88 percent (2.0 million) while women have gained only 284,000 (12 percent) of the jobs added to payrolls—primarily because job growth for women lagged men’s by nearly a year.

Women have regained nearly one out of three (881,000 or 32.4 percent) of the total jobs they lost in the recession (2.7 million from December 2007 to the trough for women’s employment in September 2010, which occurred more than one year after the recession officially ended). The picture looks somewhat better for men: men have gained 45.0 percent (2.7 million) of the jobs they lost since December 2007 (6.0 million).

In the first quarter of 2009, when President Obama began his term, employment was still falling steeply. With the passage of the President’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009, job losses abated and turned to job growth in early 2010. In 2011 and 2012 both women and men have seen job gains.

There is still a jobs deficit relative to before the recession, however, which was the most severe since the 1930s. At the pace of job gains in March (120,000), it would take until late 2020 just to employ those currently looking for work without considering additional workers entering the labor force.

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