Women Return to Job Levels Held Before Pandemic

Women in the workforce have returned to a pre-pandemic norm: The share of employed women between the ages of 25 and 54 has slipped above where it was before COVID-19 arrived in the US. Their employment rose 0.8 percentage points last month, per Axios. "Prime-age women saw some of the biggest declines in workforce participation during the pandemic," said Julia Pollak, Indeed's chief economist.

In fact, their improvement in employment levels tops that of prime-age men, who remain about 0.7 percentage points below where they were in February 2020. Pollak said the increase among women is a hopeful sign, per the Washington Post, though the economic realities remain a problem. "Many, many women throughout the country are on the margins between working and not working, and what they make at work barely covers child care that allows them to work, so often there’s no net benefit to them working." (More employment stories.)