Skip to main content
Sep 2, 2022 - Economy & Business

Women workers hit post-COVID jobs milestone

Courtenay Brown
Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Includes women aged 25-54; Monthly; January 2016 to August 2022; Tory Lysik/Axios

Women workers hit a milestone last month: The proportion of employed prime-aged women (that is, between the ages of 25-54) is finally above the level seen before the pandemic.

By the numbers: Labor force participation rate in this cohort ticked up last month by a whopping 0.8 percentage points.

  • Julia Coronado, founder of MacroPolicy Perspectives, suspects it could be tied to schools back-in-session, per a tweet.

What to watch: Men haven't notched the same feat. The employment-population ratio for prime-aged men is roughly 0.7 percentage points below the February 2020 level.

Go deeper