The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) monthly jobs report shows that the economy lost 140,000 net jobs in December, marking the first month of job loss since the economy started adding back jobs in May 2020. All of the jobs lost were women’s jobs, with women losing 156,000 jobs and men gaining 16,000. With December’s losses, more than 2 in 5 (44.4%) of the over 22.1 million jobs lost in March and April due to the COVID-19 crisis have not returned. In December, 27,000 women entered the labor force after 863,000 exited in September. However, 154,000 Black women left the labor force last month, marking the largest one-month drop in their labor force size since March and April 2020. There were nearly 2.1 million fewer women in the labor force in December than there were in February, before the pandemic started.

Note: NWLC’s monthly jobs day analyses are generally not updated after publication and are provided for archival purposes. Please visit our main jobs day page for the most up-to-date analyses.