LOSING JOBS IN UNEQUAL NUMBERS

[NewEngland4Obama]

Losing jobs in unequal numbers
1,069,000 fewer men are working than a year ago. 12,000 more women are working.

The careers of Neal Boyle and Scott Hacker couldn't be more different. Boyle, whose education ended with high school, worked 20 years crushing rocks at the US Gypsum plant in Charlestown. Hacker, who holds an MBA, changed firms several times as he moved up the management ranks in New England's financial services industry.


Graphic Job losses and gender
Sunday Preview: After losing job, I became a statistic
But today they find themselves in the same place: laid off and looking for work. And together they represent the face of the current recession, one that is overwhelmingly male.

Men are losing jobs at far greater rates than women as the industries they dominate, such as manufacturing, construction, and investment services, are hardest hit by the downturn. Some 1.1 million fewer men are working in the United States than there were a year ago, according to the Labor Department. By contrast, 12,000 more women are working.

This gender gap is the product of both the nature of the current recession and the long-term shift in the US economy from making goods, traditionally the province of men, to providing services, in which women play much larger roles, economists said. For example, men account for 70 percent of workers in manufacturing, which shed more than 500,000 jobs over the past year. Healthcare, in which nearly 80 percent of the workers are women, added more than 400,000 jobs.
MORE.....
news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/12/05/losing_jobs_in_unequal_numbers/

[Quantess]

1. Healthcare and Teaching jobs are fairly recession-proof.

I wonder if this will mean more stay at home dads for a while?

[JDPriestly]

2. I'll bet that job losses have hit people over 55 harder than those in their 20s.