Much has been made recently of the gender gap in US unemployment, with good reason. Last August the unemployment rate for men hit 11 per cent, 2.7 percentage points above the rate for women, the largest difference in the post-war era.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York today released a paper looking into the reasons for the differences between the unemployment rates. The upshot of the paper is two-fold. One, we’re achieving greater workforce equality (because the job market for men is getting worse) and two, it’s going to take us a long time to recover jobs, because the employment changes are structural.
It turns out that, perhaps not surprisingly, that after men and women are unemployed, they have almost as difficult a time getting a job. But men are becoming unemployed in larger numbers than women, both because they are losing their jobs in greater numbers and because a greater number of men who have left the labour force are reentering it.
Read more
Growth has been slightly higher than expected: “the economy grew at an annual rate of 5 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2009, spurred by vigorous domestic spending and further recovery in exports,” said the Bank. 
Older entries
Chris Giles
Michael Steen
Robin Harding
Ralph Atkins
Claire Jones
