Covid-19 job cuts hit women harder

An employee at Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in Athi River, Kenya. The textile and apparel sub-sector, a significant employer of women, was among the first wave of closures triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. 


Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Horticulture, hospitality, textile and apparel sub-sectors comprising mostly of female workforce hard hit by epidemic.
  • Government yet to offer a stimulus package to cushion these sectors.
  • In the United States the share of women who filed new unemployment claims in the last two weeks of March surged from 13 to 35 percentage points. 
  • Statistics obtained by The Fuller Project from several States show women comprised a  majority of unemployment claimants.  
  • Single moms who head 23 per cent of households with children in the US are in vulnerable financial situations.

International Labour Organisation (ILO) has warned that almost 25 million people would lose their jobs globally due to Covid-19.

Women would in this case be disproportionately affected as they are over-represented in affected sectors, it notes.

In Kenya, horticulture, hospitality, textile and apparel sub-sectors comprising of a majority of female workforce have been hard hit by the epidemic.

The female workforce in flower farms is estimated to be between 65 and 75 per cent. Further, women constitute at least 80 per cent of the workforce in the textile industry and 40 per cent in the food and drinks sub-sector according to ILO.

Informal business

They also own more than 60 per cent of the informal businesses, a sector that has been heavily disrupted by State measures to control spread of the diseases.

Open air markets have been closed as they are considered high risk areas of infections.

With stay-at-home and social distancing order, women are scared of visiting salons, which are mainly run by women, resulting to a dwindle in earnings. 

Mary Anyango, runs a small kiosk and salon in Kaptembwa slums in Nakuru County. 

She is worried about the future of her business as profits are no longer forthcoming. yet she has bills to pay and family to feed. 

"I still go to work because I need food for my five children and pay rent. But I don't know what the future holds for my family because the business is really bad. I am afraid of losing my business due to a financial crisis," she says. 

Stimulus package

Juliet Nyaboke was until March 18, a cleaner at a Nairobi based restaurant. Her employer sent her home upon paying her for the days she had worked. 

"He told me he would contact me once things picked up. I am not alone though, there were four other ladies and two men who were sent home. Some were waiters while others worked in the kitchen," says the single-mother of four. 

The government is yet to offer a stimulus package or financial aid to cushion sectors with largest female workforce. 

President Uhuru Kenyatta has, however, reduced the Reduction of the turnover tax rate from three per cent to one per cent for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.  

He also lowered the Value Added Tax from 16 per cent to 14 per cent which favours manufacturers. He at the same time, dropped the Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) tax to 25 per cent from 30 per cent which only benefits those in formal employment. 

Curb spread

The situation is not unique to Kenya but is a global problem. Statistics obtained by The Fuller Project from several States in the US show that women's share of new unemployment claims during the last two weeks of March surged from an estimated 13 to 35 percentage points above the norm for those States. 

Elizabeth Holt lost her waitressing job at an Applebee’s in San Antonio, Texas on March 23, a few days after the mayor made all restaurants carry-out and delivery only in order to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Holt was the main provider for her family of eight. Her husband, a part-time dishwasher at the same restaurant, lost his job the same day.

“I have always, even as a server, paid all our bills on time, and was able to spoil our kids and give them what they needed,” Holt said. “Now, nothing. No income, our rent is $972 (Sh102,000), and I don’t have a dime to pay them.” 

New York

A record-shattering 8.7 million Americans put in new claims for unemployment benefits during the last two weeks of March, as governors State-by-State shut down schools and workplaces. 

Statistics from several States, obtained by The Fuller Project, show women comprised a significant majority of unemployment claimants during the first weeks of the closures. 

In Minnesota, New Jersey and Virginia, women were nearly two-thirds of the 267,000 new unemployment applicants during the week ending March 21, according to statistics provided by agencies from each State - an estimated 21 to 39 percentage points above what would be the norm for those States. 

In New York, State data shows more than half of the 450,000 people who filed new claims for unemployment during the last two weeks of March were women. In the previous 25 years, their share of unemployment recipients that month had never been higher than 40 per cent, federal data shows.

Covid-19

Oregon also sent statistics that indicate women were majority of new unemployment applicants whereas typically during the spring, they are just over one-third of applicants. 

The Department of Labour is not collecting data on initial claims from early weeks of the Covid-19 crisis. 

Ms Holt has been a waitress since she was 15, and said it provided her steady work even through the worst of the Great Recession. But this economic crisis is different, driven entirely by health concerns, not normal economic forces. The blows — from the burden of caring for children suddenly out of school, to the type of jobs that are seeing the most cuts — seem to be hitting women harder. 

Partially paid leave

Given the initial evidence of a surge in women’s unemployment, we need to know more about who lost their jobs, and why, so we can give a lifeline to the workers who need it most. 

This data is available in the unemployment databases of every US State. Unfortunately, coronavirus relief worth billions of dollars is being legislated, in the absence of this information. Advocacy groups say the relief dollars will miss the mark. 

For instance, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act requires certain employers to provide paid or partially-paid leave for pandemic-related reasons, such as if the employee or a family member who requires care becomes ill. It provides for up to 12 weeks of partially-paid leave from work to care for children home from school.  

But exemptions mean 80 per cent of the workforce’s employers do not have to provide these protections. These include healthcare companies, large restaurant, retail, and hospitality chains —major employers of women that were hit hard by the coronavirus shutdowns. 

Employment department

In Oregon, the “accommodations and food services” and “healthcare and social assistance” sectors employ one-third of the State’s working women. During the last week of February, 16 per cent of the new claims came from these sectors. It shot up to 50 per cent during the last two weeks of March, according to Oregon’s Employment Department. 

In Virginia, 33 per cent of the new claimants during the week ending March 21, were from the food service sector. In New Jersey, 40 per cent.  

Childcare difficulty already held many mothers back from working or advancing in their career. After coronavirus, schools were shut down, creating a childcare catastrophe. 

In Minnesota, the week schools closed, women’s share of new unemployment claims shot up to 63 per cent — 42 percentage points higher than during the last week of February. 

Single mums

Minnesota’s online unemployment application has a section for coronavirus-related job losses that asks if the inability to find childcare was a factor. 

Thus Minnesota, and other States could provide data on how many men and women left work simply to care for their kids. 

Single moms, who head 23 per cent of households with children, are in particularly vulnerable financial situations, and are getting less Federal rebate than their married counterparts.

Black and Latina single moms are more likely to work in low-wage jobs, including at the large retail, restaurant and hospitality chains exempted in the relief packages. 

Then there are the millions of under-the-table workers, predominantly women and people of colour, now in financial peril, who can’t benefit from the relief packages.

Weekly surveys

“There is nothing available to this workforce and they are essentially holding our country together through the crisis,” Ai-Jen Poo, co-founder and executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, said. 

The Alliance started conducting weekly surveys on the impact of coronavirus on domestic workers. Their latest results found 72 per cent of respondents without jobs. Most are the primary breadwinners for their families, and overwhelmingly said they didn’t know how they would afford food. More than half were unable to pay April’s rent. 

Single moms head nearly one-quarter of all US households with children, and are more likely to be in poverty than their married counterparts.

Without smart, targeted relief, coronavirus is predicted to increase income inequality, hitting the vulnerable in society along gender, racial and ethnic lines. 

Race and ethnicity

Members of Congress have called for the release of Federal data about coronavirus infections by race and ethnicity. They should also call for data that gives insight into who has lost their jobs because of the virus, and if certain groups have been left out of the relief packages. 

The US Labour Department is gathering demographic statistics from State agencies on the people receiving unemployment insurance for its monthly release of the “Characteristics of the Insured Unemployed” data.

Because this is the way it has always been done, the data will count the people who were receiving unemployment the week of the month that includes the 19th, which last month was March 15 through 21. 

Self-employed workers

Most of the people who were receiving unemployment that week would have lost their jobs for reasons unrelated to the coronavirus. That same week, 2.9 million people filed new applications for unemployment, and the week after that, 5.8 million people. 

The Labour Department also has no plans for any off-schedule releases specific to COVID-19, other than some “limited” information about the self-employed workers who are newly eligible for unemployment, spokesmen for the agency confirmed.  

But State agencies have in their possession data that offers extensive details on the people who lost their jobs during the first four weeks of a historic, cataclysmic economic collapse.  

These agencies should provide weekly demographic details from their unemployment databases throughout this crisis, in part because the systems in many States are so jammed that people who lost their jobs weeks ago still haven’t been able to file their claims. 

New staff

Ms Holt said she has been trying to file her unemployment claim every day since she lost her job more than two weeks ago, on March 23, but hasn’t been able to get through.  

“It keeps knocking me off,” she said. The response to her husband’s application estimates it could take up to four weeks to get $115 (Sh12,000) a week.  

Like in most States, Texas has been overwhelmed by the record number of applications it has been receiving — nearly 300,000 the week Ms Holt lost her job.

“We have extended our hours of operation and are open Saturdays. We are hiring new staff. We are committed to helping every single Texan in need,” Cisco Gamez, a spokesman for the Texas Workforce Commission, said.

In the meantime, Ms Holt said Applebee’s “gave us no help,” that would tide her family over. 


By Moraa Obiria, Gender Writer at Nation Media Group

Xanthe Scharff is CEO of The Fuller Project, a non-profit journalism organization dedicated to reporting on women. 

Sarah Ryley, a Pulitzer Prize-winning data and investigative journalist, is a contributor to The Fuller Project