ATLANTA — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week for a fifth straight week to a new pandemic low.
Jobless claims dropped by 20,000 last week to 385,000. Experts say the drop in applications reflects the rebound in economic growth and the job market's steady recovery from the Coronavirus recession.
But they're waiting in anticipation for the May monthly jobs report and many are hoping it will be better than the last one. The April jobs report revealed we added only 266,000 jobs to the workforce.
But it was another claim that caught our eye, that all the job gains went to men.
We VERIFY.
THE QUESTION
Did all the April jobs in America go to men?
THE ANSWER
No, we can't say ALL the jobs went to men. But we can say that more men entered the workforce while more women left.
WHAT WE KNOW
The claim comes from a Washington Post article that said "all the job gains in April went to men."
Our Verify team dug into the numbers to find out the truth. We spoke to the Georgia Department of Labor Commissioner and the president and CEO of the Institute for Women's and Policy Research.
It turns out, it's not a simple black and white answer.
The graphs released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show the "labor force participation for men" goes up slightly from 67.3 percent in March to 67.6 percent in April.
The graph for women shows the numbers staying the same.
The raw data shows the labor force increased by 430,000 with an increase of 494,000 men and a decline of 64,000 women. That's according to statisticians at the Georgia Department of labor, based on BLS.
So, technically yes, we can VERIFY there are fewer women in the workforce, but Commissioner Mark Butler said to take that with a grain of salt.
"Right now, there's so much churn going on. I just really don't think you can put a lot of stock in this. A lot of the labor numbers right now," Butler said.
The numbers show that not every single job filled went to a man, but the number of women working is declining.
C. Nicole Mason, the president and CEO of the Institute for Women's and Policy Research, said women left the workforce at four times the rate of men at the state of the pandemic.
It will take a few factors to bring them back.
"Child care and daycare closures is a huge factor in women being able to reenter the workforce and sustain employment," Mason said.
So, experts agree that to get a clear picture of the labor force, we'll just have to wait.
"I think we're all anxious to have answers and really chart a path towards recovery, but it's just we're just not going to have those answers right away," Mason said.
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