Why women's job loss is overlooked in public discourse

Black women lost 91% of all women’s jobs in April. But that number isn’t the whole story — it’s just the tip of the truth. Here’s what’s “under the hood”: 1. This isn’t a fluke. It’s design. We’re overrepresented in jobs labeled essential during crisis and expendable during recovery. Admin, healthcare support, education, retail — sectors that get cut first and protect last. This is occupational segregation, and it’s doing exactly what it was built to do. 2. We were already leaking out of the pipeline. Let’s not pretend this started in April. We’ve been underpromoted, underpaid, and undersponsored — despite being the most educated demographic in the country. So when layoffs come, we aren’t just losing jobs. We’re losing hard-won ground. 3. Post-2020 performative #DEI is dead — and we’re the collateral. Many of us were hired into DEI roles or “diversity-friendly” spaces when companies wanted good press. Now, as backlash builds and budgets shrink, we’re first on the chopping block — again. This is what happens when #equity is cosmetic. 4. The economic damage is generational. 91% job loss isn’t just a stat. It’s a ripple: • Mortgage denials • Career derailment • College fund delays • Entrepreneurship on pause • Healthcare gaps This hits families, not just individuals. 5. Stop calling this a resilience issue. Resilience isn’t a fix for economic exploitation. We are not interested in masking systemic harm with individual hustle. So no, this isn’t just about job loss. It’s about power. It’s about who gets to stay. It’s about who gets protected — and who gets the short end of the stick just for taking up space. Black women are architecting a strategy that doesn’t require permission. Black women are pivoting on purpose, rebranding without code-switching, and rising without waiting for rescue. If this shook you, good. If it lit a fire under you, even better. Now let’s build something they can’t lay off. #RebrandAndRise #CareerNomadNoir #BlackWomenAtWork #StillEmployedStillAfraid #RNA #Layoffs #WorkplaceTruths #StopTheErasure #PowerToPivot #LinkedInNews LinkedIn News #hellomonday #officehours Source: Black Enterprise Magazine, May 2025 Jeffrey McKinney https://lnkd.in/eCMzUd8K

"Since the federal government seems less and less invested in whatever is going on with female workers right now, I asked three economists why they think there has been a decline in the number of women working. They all said there isn’t an obvious reason; industries that are predominately female, like health care, continue to add jobs. 'There are so many negative pressures on women working today that we can’t easily point to one story,' Kathryn Anne Edwards told me. Misty Heggeness, who is an associate professor at the University of Kansas, said that the cost of child care has outpaced overall inflation during the past few years, which may push some women who are in dual-earning families back home. Child care costs increased an eye-popping 29 percent from 2020 to 2024. Edwards speculated that college-educated, young female workers without children may be opting to ride out a bad job market by getting more education. She added that return-to-office mandates championed by the president may be pushing some mothers out of the job market because they had built their lives around hybrid or remote roles, and can’t manage without that flexibility. All of these explanations make sense to me, but I think there’s also an unquantifiable chilling effect that the government’s priorities may be having. In its all-out assault on the concepts of diversity and inclusion, the Trump administration is sending a message: Women and nonwhite people who have a 'good job' that is well paid and has a chance for advancement might be there for reasons — tokenism, for instance — other than their own merits. Despite all these headwinds for women, high-profile pundits and politicians of all political backgrounds continue to be laser-focused on the plight of boys and men. The pervasive, incorrect idea behind this special pleading is that men’s employment is absolutely essential to our country’s economic and social well-being; while women’s employment might be nice to have, their job loss doesn’t constitute a serious obstacle." A MUST READ in The New York Times today by the always-brilliant Jessica Grose!! https://lnkd.in/eaVYJtgP

This International Women's Day, I want to share data that stopped me cold. Anthropic published research this week measuring which workers face the highest AI displacement risk. The answer is not who anyone expected. The most AI-exposed workers in the US are: → 16 percentage points more likely to be female → 4x more likely to hold a graduate degree → Earning 47% more than the least-exposed group We spent years building the narrative that automation threatens low-wage work. Factory floors. Delivery drivers. Retail cashiers. AI walked straight past them. It sat down at the desk of the woman who spent two decades forcing her way into finance, tech, and analytics. The most exposed jobs? Computer programmers. Financial analysts. Customer service managers. 75% task coverage. Already. Right now. These aren't entry-level roles that women "settled for." These are the careers women fought their way into — often against the odds, often without a roadmap. Here's the part that should make us angry. The job losses aren't visible yet. No unemployment spike. No headlines. Because it's not happening through layoffs. It's happening through closed doors. Young women aged 22–25 entering these fields are seeing hiring rates fall 14% since ChatGPT launched. Not fired. Never offered the job. That is how structural exclusion works. Silently. Before the data is undeniable. Before anyone has to answer for it. On International Women's Day, we celebrate how far women have come. But I want to ask a harder question: Who is protecting where they are now? The same industries that championed gender diversity in tech and finance — are they mapping which female-dominated roles are most AI-exposed? Are they funding transition programmes ahead of this curve, or waiting to react? If we only act once the data screams, we didn't protect progress. We delayed the fall. Infrastructure beats innovation. But infrastructure that ignores equity isn't infrastructure — it's a trap. What is your organisation doing TODAY to protect its most exposed workforce?

Mums are leaving the workforce, and we keep pretending it’s their choice.   Every year in the UK, tens of thousands of women disappear from the workforce after having children. We label it a “personal decision.” We talk about priorities changing. But the truth is, many of them didn’t choose to leave, they were pushed out, one policy, one assumption, one unspoken bias at a time.   The data is blunt. Roughly 74,000 women a year lose their jobs because they got pregnant, went on maternity leave, or came back and couldn’t fit into the structure that waited for them. That’s one in eight working mothers. And for those who stay, earnings drop by around 40% in the five years after a first child. Not because they can’t do the work, because the system stops making space for them to do it.   This is how it happens: A promotion goes to someone “more available.” Flexible work exists on paper, but not in practice. Childcare costs more than half a salary, so choices shrink. The assumption quietly sets in that motherhood and ambition don’t mix. Most companies don’t mean to exclude working mums. But most haven’t redesigned work for reality either. They’ve built systems for people without caregiving responsibilities, then called it equality.   The fix isn’t radical. It’s practical. Design roles that are flexible by default. Treat flexible working as infrastructure, not accommodation. Create proper re-entry programmes with pay and progression protections. And normalise care for everyone, equal parental leave, shared responsibility, no side-eye when a dad takes time off.   We can keep telling the story that mums “step back.” Or we can admit the truth: they’re being squeezed out of spaces that refuse to evolve.   Work doesn’t have to be this way. But change won’t start until leaders stop pretending it’s a choice.

📉 266,000 Black women lost their jobs last month. Let that sink in. Not over the past year. Not during a recession. In just one month. And yet—where’s the media coverage? Where’s the national conversation? Where’s the outrage? Black women are the most educated demographic in America. We’re earning degrees, starting businesses, leading households, mentoring others, and innovating in every industry. But we’re also the first to be let go, the last to be promoted, and the most underpaid. This isn’t just a data point. It’s a crisis. And the silence around it is loud. We keep hearing about “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “equity”—but what happens when Black women are quietly pushed out of the workforce without support, without explanation, and without solutions? Here’s what needs to happen now: 🔹 Tell the truth about what's happening 🔹 Fund Black women founders 🔹 Hire, sponsor, and pay Black women equitably 🔹 Hold companies accountable—not just for who they hire, but who they *keep* This isn’t about blame. It’s about visibility, justice, and change. If you're in leadership, HR, or policy—you have the power to interrupt this trend. The question is: Will you? #BlackWomenAtWork #PayEquity #BlackWomenLead #Layoffs #WorkforceEquity #FutureOfWork #LeadershipMatters #InclusionIsNotRetention #DEI #WageGap #BlackWomenDeserveBetter

Women aren’t “choosing” to leave the workforce. They are being systematically forced out. The recent Catalyst Inc. data confirms what many of us already feel: The record pace of women pausing their careers has nothing to do with a lack of ambition despite what the 2025 McKinsey report suggests. It’s a math problem and a logistical nightmare designed to trigger voluntary attrition. The Reality Check: ✔️ The Childcare Tax: I compared our daycare bill for an infant and toddler in 2018 to today. It is 1.75x more expensive. In Raleigh, average daycare costs now consume >40% of average net income. ✔️The Flexibility Gap: RTO policies are being used as a playbook for workforce reduction without severance. It’s easier to let women "voluntarily" exit than to rethink a work environment originally built for men. ✔️The School Trap: Elementary school runs 9:00–3:30. Corporate offices demand 9:00–5:00. Without flexibility, that gap is a chasm that women are expected to fill with magic or more money. I find it telling that for the first time in 11 years, the McKinsey & Company study omitted caregiving from its analysis. By ignoring the logistics of being a working parent, they reached the convenient, and false, conclusion that the issue is "women’s ambition." Ambition isn't the problem. The infrastructure is. When we remove flexibility, we aren't just losing employees; we are forcing women back into financial dependence and undoing decades of progress in gender equity. Stop calling it a "choice." Start calling it what it is: a systemic failure. #WorkingParents #GenderEquity #RTO #WorkplaceCulture #ChildcareCrisis #Leadership

Over the past few months, I’ve spoken to three women: 👉🏻 One who felt forced to leave her job because her fertility treatment wasn’t supported 👉🏻 One who stepped away from an executive role due to debilitating menopausal symptoms 👉🏻 One who accepted a demotion just so she could continue working from home around childcare These were capable, ambitious women who didn’t lack drive. What they lacked were supportive systems. That’s why the latest Lean In / McKinsey & Company “Women in the Workplace” report and its focus on an “ambition gap” doesn’t sit comfortably with me. Fewer women say they want promotion, despite reporting equal commitment. What’s missing is the context many women are navigating alongside their careers: Childcare 👶 IVF 🧬 Miscarriage and pregnancy loss 🕯️ Maternity transitions 🤱 Endometriosis 🩺 Perimenopause and menopause 🌡️ Returning to work after exhaustion or ill health 💛 These are not rare cases but rather predictable realities across the female talent pipeline. When women step back, it’s framed as a confidence issue yet the reality is…it’s a systems issue. Women aren’t opting out of ambition. They are opting out of environments that were never designed to hold the realities of their lives. #WomensHealthAtWork #WomenInTheWorkplace #AmbitionGap #GenderEquity #DEI #FutureOfWork #MenopauseAtWork #FertilityAtWork #WorkingParents #WorkplaceCulture

I’m saying the quiet part out loud: return-to-office (RTO) mandates disproportionately hurt women in the workforce. When companies insist on in-office presence without room for flexibility, they aren't just asking for more teamwork. They are asking their employees' partners and households to take on more at home to enable their business goals. Here's the thing: ♀️ Women perform two-thirds of all unpaid care work in America, spending an average of 296 hours annually on caregiving. ♀️ In hetero marriages, even with both partners working full time, women still handle more domestic tasks such as laundry and meal prep. In most households, women are still the primary caregivers. The pandemic made this imbalance obvious; in September 2020, 865,000 women left the labor force compared to 216,000 men. Worse, leaders know it and plow ahead: 💼 63% of C-suite leaders acknowledge that RTO mandates have led to a disproportionate number of women quitting their jobs.  💼 Companies implementing RTO mandates saw female turnover rates spike by 12% - nearly triple the rate of their male colleagues. Rigid RTO policies for both men and women ignore the realities of modern work-life integration. They threaten to undo progress by forcing women into impossible choices between career advancement and family obligations. In recent weeks, I've spoken to many women who are worried. Their partners have been forced to reduce their shared duties, such as carpooling, doctor visits, staying home with a sick child, or simply letting the plumber in. Affordable, accessible, and flexible childcare options are still out of reach or difficult to find. The result? Women are forced to absorb the aftershocks. They leave jobs or scale back ambitions they’ve worked years to build. This isn’t just about personal losses. It’s a loss for companies and organizations that claim to value diversity and innovation. It's also a loss for our society that aims for progress in the face of regression.

Across industries, midlife women are quietly exiting the workforce — not because they’ve lost ambition or capability, but because of untreated, unspoken perimenopause. These are high performers in their 40s and 50s, navigating brain fog, insomnia, memory lapses, anxiety, and more — all while trying to meet productivity standards built around a body that doesn’t bleed. And the system barely notices. In the U.S., lost productivity due to untreated menopause symptoms costs businesses an estimated $26.6 billion annually. In the UK, nearly 900,000 women have left their jobs for the same reason. Yet most employers offer no education, no medical coverage, no policy — and no language to even name what’s happening. These women don’t just leave roles. They leave equity, career momentum, leadership pipelines, and long-term wealth creation behind. And the impact compounds — for companies, economies, and future generations. This is not a women’s health sidebar. It’s a systemic blind spot — a failure of capital allocation, organizational design, and strategic foresight. Midlife women are not a niche; they are critical infrastructure. They lead teams, raise families, drive consumer spending, and increasingly control generational wealth. Ignoring the biological realities of this life stage is not just negligent — it’s economically irrational. We don’t need awareness months or corporate toolkits. We need policies that embed hormonal literacy into leadership training, health plans that treat menopause like the medical event it is, and capital frameworks that recognize care as an engine of value creation. If we want resilient workforces, diverse leadership, and gender-equitable growth, we can’t afford to lose women at the moment their experience, insight, and influence peak. This isn’t about softening expectations. It’s about modernizing the systems that were never built with women in mind. #MidlifeWorkforceCrisis #PerimenopauseAtWork #WomensHealthEquity #QuietResignation #WomenInLeadership #WorkplaceEquity #MenopauseSupport #InclusiveWorkplaces #FutureOfWork https://lnkd.in/ezYcCWXT

It’s always an honor to collaborate with journalist Sheree R. Curry. Together, we co-authored a new commentary in USA TODAY examining how job cuts continue to impact Black women—both historically and in the present. As we note in the piece, the patterns we’re witnessing today echo the long and painful history of Black women’s labor being undervalued, overlooked, and too often erased. Sheree brings a journalist’s precision to these stories; I bring a historian’s lens. Together, we hope to illuminate how these challenges persist—and what it will take to change them. From the op-ed: "In 1993, one of us began a prestigious internship at a federal agency. During orientation, a lineup of high-ranking officials, nearly all White, save one person of color, addressed the interns. When the time came to move on to the next stage of the process, an army of Black women entered to shepherd the group through. One of the White male interns leaned over and remarked to another that this must be how the agency fulfilled its “diversity requirement.” The comment was jolting, not just for its insensitivity but for what it revealed. When confronted, the intern insisted he meant no harm. “I was just stating a fact,” he said. Moments like that stay with us because they capture a deeper truth about American labor: Black women have always been visible enough to do the work, yet too often invisible when it comes to power, protection and recognition. As a historian and a journalist, we bring different lenses to this issue but share the same concern: that the losses Black women face in today’s workforce echo a long and painful history of undervaluation. As many Black Americans know, Black women have long been expected to work twice as hard for half the pay and are too often the first to be cut when budgets tighten. It’s not coincidence; it’s inequity. Recent reports show that Black women have been disproportionately affected by federal job cuts – an echo of inequities that have persisted for generations. . . "The intern’s offhand remark from 1993 has become a metaphor for our times – proof that the presence of Black women in public service is still mistaken for progress that has been achieved when it is really the constant, quiet labor that keeps progress alive. Our shared concern is that, amid shifting priorities and shrinking budgets, the country will forget how much its strength depends on the labor and leadership of these women. We cannot afford that amnesia. The roles these women fill are essential. Yet the women who have long done them well are being pushed out. The work will remain, but too often without the women who carried it forward." You can read the entire op-ed here: 👉 https://lnkd.in/gWeDKYke #Workforce #Economy #Jobs #BlackWomen #History #Equity #Diversity