Dick Meister: Here come the women!

Pub date September 28, 2009
SectionBruce Blog

Women now hold half the country’s jobs and will hold more than half by year’s end

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, former San Francisco Chronicle labor editor and labor reporter for KQED-TV’s “Newsroom,” has covered labor and politics for a half-century as an author, reporter, editor and commentator.)

Good news for women: Despite the recession – or because of it women workers will very soon outnumber male workers for the first time in U.S. history.

After many, many years of minority status, many years of generally being paid less than men and otherwise treated as second-class workers by male bosses, women now have the numbers to more effectively combat workplace discrimination.

New data from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics show that at mid-year, women held half the country’s jobs and undoubtedly will hold more than half by year’s end.