Battle of the Sexes - Who Has Had a Better Recovery?

There is a multitude of data released with the Employment Situation Report Every month of the year. How many part-time jobs were lost last month? How many Full-time Jobs were created? How many unemployed workers are there? What is the unemployment rate? What is the participation rate? So far we have looked at the raw number for August in the columns "August Job Numbers Disappoint," "Four Presidents at 91 Months - Laboring Under False Pretenses," "Two Full-time Jobs? Record Number of Workers Working Two Full-time Jobs" and "Red, Gray, and Blue: August Aging Workforce."

We should have had net seasonally adjusted work loss reported during the months of May and September. President Obama is in fourth place for adding participants to the economy. We had a record level of workers working two full-time jobs and a near record level of people working two part-time jobs during September. . We had a lower participation rate for every age group between 16-64, and higher participation rates among those 65-69, 70-74, and 75 and older, during the month of August. 

How are Men doing in this recovery versus how are women recovering?

Men Lost Over 10 Million Full-time Jobs during the Great Recession. The graphs used in this article use July 2007 as the "zero" value for  the graphs. July 2007 was the peak jobs month, non-seasonally adjusted, prior top the recession. While the press has been promoting over 70 consecutive months of private sector growth nobody was discussing the the "mancession" lately. There were 10.621 million full-time jobs lost by men between July 2007 and January 2010. It was fortunate that over 2 million part-time jobs were created during the same period of time. It took until July of this year - 9 years - for the 10.6 million full-time jobs men held prior to the recession to be recovered. We have now added a paltry 263,000 full-time jobs and just over 1.5 million part-time jobs for men since July 2007. We have added fewer than 2 million jobs for over 10 million more male worker.

Women lost 3.8 million full-time Jobs during the Recession - Started adding Jobs during 2015. Women had added 2.4 million full-time jobs since July 2007. Another way to look at the data is that women have added 10 times more full-time jobs than men during the past 9 years. Women have added more full-time jobs than men and men had added more part-time jobs than women since July 2007. Yes, men make up a larger portion of the workforce, so a recession would have a larger impact on them. Why hasn't the recovery added as many full-time jobs for men as women since July 2007?

There are more unemployed men and women now than July 2007. This is not being discussed in the media. The media discusses the unemployment rate, the fraction of the participants that are unemployed, without referencing the participation rate, the fraction of the population who are counted as employed or unemployed. Over 6 million men were considered to be unemployed at the same time that over 10 million men had lost their full-time jobs. Women saw peak unemployment during July 2010. We have a half-million more combined men and women unemployed now than during July 2007. This does not take into account the participation rate

The Workforce participation rate for men has declined for men and women. When you examine the graph at the left of this paragraph note that this is not a "non-zero" graph. The range of participation rates goes from 55% to 75%. We have seen the overall participation rate slide as the unemployment rate had slid.The male workforce participation rate during the month of July bottomed out during July of 2015. It is possible that we are finally beginning to see a "man-covery" after the "man-cession."

The Workforce participation rate for women continues to decline. Women started to participate more during the recession. Women brought home the bacon while men started cooking the bacon. The workforce participation of women have declined since July 2009. Did they take some time off from working as the men started recovering their lost jobs?

If this was a full recovery we would see more jobs for more workers, male or female. The "Four Presidents" series has detailed how we are missing millions of participants, employed or unemployed workers. If those people re not employed and they are of workforce age then they are effectively unemployed. The "effective unemployment rate" is in excess of 10% and could be higher than 12% or 13%. Our population is growing. We are adding jobs. We are not adding enough jobs for the increase in population that we are recording.

This column has written about how this is a "Goldilocks Economy," not too hot, not too cold. This column has written about how this is a "Cool Hand Luke Economy," where we have a failure to participate. This column has also written how this is an "A Few Good Men Economy," because we can't handle the truth. Until recently this was a "Fewer Good Men" economy.

Will we see participation increase with women? Will men continue to add full-time jobs? Will anyone else report on the disparity of the recession and the disparity in the recovery? What will the Presidential Candidates due to ensure that we see a recovery for all?