The Obama Administration just released the Bureau of Labor Statistics for November 2014, and the employment report shows more job growth in the past 11 months than in any previous calendar year since the 1990s, with women surpassing their previous employment peak in September 2013.
This November marked the longest streak – 57 months – of private sector growth on record. In November 2014 alone, 321,000 jobs were added to the economy, with 314,000 of these jobs in the private sector. Today’s unemployment rate of 5.8 percent represents a 1.2 percent decrease since the beginning of 2014. Overall women’s unemployment is now 5.3 percent, slightly lower than men’s at 5.4 percent.
“Public job growth, which is currently being truncated, especially by Republican governors who are cutting public sector jobs and by the failure of Congress to pass a desperately needed infrastructure bill, is not keeping pace with the private sector job growth,” said Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority. “This is particularly hard on women and people of color, who hold a larger share of public sector than private sector jobs, and on blue-collar men in construction jobs.”
Unemployment rates for black and Hispanic women, although decreasing considerably, still remain high. The unemployment rate for African American women is 9.8 percent from a high of 13.8 percent in 2010. Hispanic women’s unemployment rate has been cut in half, from 12.3 percent in 2010 to 6.4 percent. White women’s unemployment rate at 4.5 percent is considerably better than the overall unemployment rate. The unemployment rate for women who maintain families, including single mothers, is also high at 8.2 percent, although it has decreased considerably from a peak in 2010 at 13.4 percent.
