Fed’s Powell: Pandemic recession has particularly hurt women

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER
AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell expressed concern that the pandemic recession has had an unusually harmful economic effect on women, who have been forced to shoulder additional responsibilities for childcare, forcing many of them to leave work. The departure of so many mothers from the workforce is a big reason why the proportion of Americans who are either working or looking for work remains below pre-pandemic levels even as employers are scrambling to fill a near-record total of available jobs. When the pandemic recession struck, women, who were more likely to hold frontline jobs in health care, at grocery stores and in other public-facing industries, suffered greater job losses than men.