The "Man-Cession" Continues to Worsen

According to today's BLS report (Table A-1, Household Data), the U.S. economy lost 2.956 million jobs in the last year (Dec. 2007 to Dec. 2008). Further analysis shows that 82% of the job losses (2.413 million) were jobs held by males, and 18% of the jobs losses (460,000) were jobs held by females (see top chart above). Of the 806,000 decline in December employment (household data), 91% of the job losses were male jobs (730,000), compared to a 76,000 job loss for females (9% of total).

Further, the December unemployment rate for men is 7.9% vs. only 6.4% for women, and the gap in jobless rates between men and women has been increasing for the last eight months (see bottom chart above).

See previous CD posts on this topic here and here.