Unemployment remains persistently high, despite the “official” end of the recession in June of 2009. But recent improvements in the overall unemployment rate don’t tell the whole story. The “shadow” unemployment rate, which includes unemployed, underemployed, underutilized and discouraged workers, is a more accurate representation, including workers who have given up looking for jobs, and those who have exhausted UI benefits.
Part-time employment shot up during the recession, both for men and women. In 2010, men’s part-time employment rates declined, probably because many of them returned to full-time work. Yet women’s rate of part-time employment remained high, peaking at almost 38%. More men than women worked part-time due to economic reasons, meaning they wanted full-time work but could not find it. Even so, the percentage of women working part-time for economic reasons nearly doubled from 2007 to 2010. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: state economy, economy, jobs, shadow unemployment, unemployment rate, Washington, women in the workforce
