An increasing share of women are participating in the workforce, representing a strong recovery from a pandemic-era slump. With more job openings and recruitment of women alongside high inflation driving needs for supplemental income, more women than ever are either employed or searching for work.
This recovery has come quite swiftly from the sudden drop seen in the pandemic, as millions of women either lost their jobs or left the workforce. In the early months of the pandemic, the labor participation rate dropped by over 3.5%, reaching the lowest rate since 2015. The number of women in the workforce had been in a general decline since its peak in 2000, yet showed a sense of resurgence in the late 2010s leading up to the pandemic. Now, the labor participation rate for women between the ages of 25 and 54 is 77.5%, higher than ever recorded. As primarily younger women continuously enter the workforce with plans to work long-term, this rate is expected by many analysts to continue rising.
Sources: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Print Version: June 2023 More Women in the Workforce Labor Market Update