The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor is the principal Federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy.
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FEBRUARY 2022
Demographic Changes In Employment During The COVID-19
Pandemic
Megan Dunn
2020 was a year of widespread labor market difficulty as the country struggled with the COVID-19 pandemic. People
were less likely to be employed in the second quarter of 2020—during the depths of the February–April recession—
than during the second quarter of 2019, a year before the pandemic. In the second quarter of 2019, the employment–
population ratio was 60.7 percent. In the second quarter of 2020, it fell 7.7 percentage points—the largest over-the-
year change ever recorded—to 53.0 percent. By the second quarter of 2021, a year into the pandemic, the ratio had
risen to 58.1 percent, still below its pre-pandemic level.
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At the onset of the pandemic, employment declined more for women than
for men
The number of employed people plummeted from 2019 to 2020 as the pandemic unfolded. Both men and women
experienced unprecedented employment declines, but the decline for women was steeper than that for men (−13.4
percent and −11.4 percent, respectively).
By the second quarter of 2021, as vaccines became available and some of the restrictions that curtailed economic
activity during 2020 were lifted, the number of employed people began to rise. The 2021 employment increase—
much like the loss in 2020—was steeper for women than for men. In spite of these gains, employment was still down
considerably from 2019 for both women and men (3.2 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively).
U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
Spotlight on Statistics
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U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
Spotlight on Statistics
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White workers were least affected by employment loss at start of pandemic,
but their recovery lagged
Employment of White non-Hispanic workers declined less (in relative terms) than that of other workers in 2020. But
by 2021, employment for all groups had begun to recover, and the shortfalls for e