Women accounted for 100% of job losses in December 2020, and female unemployment itself raised to 6.3%. The economy as a whole took a major dip in December, with 140,000 jobs lost, many within the restaurant and bar business. However, not all jobs were lost equally. While men gained roughly 16,000 jobs, women lost 156,000. In fact, of the net job losses since February 2020, women accounted for 55% of them.

“We know that those long-term spells of unemployment make it hard to find another job and it also means that when you do find another job, your wages are likely to be lower, so the fact that women are getting hit so hard in this recession really threatens to widen the gender wage gap going forward,” said Emily Martin, NWLC’s vice president for education and workplace justice.