Marianne Russo quit her job at Facebook Inc. last year when the pandemic closed her kids’ schools.
Now, she’s vaccinated, schools are reopening and Russo, one of more than 1.4 million mothers who left the workforce during Covid, is struggling to break back in.
Even as the economy brightens with every jab in an arm, signs are emerging that resume gaps and ongoing child-care responsibilities are still holding many women back. Mothers between the ages of 25 and 54 remain out of the workforce at higher rates than everyone else, according to analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
And as more women do return to work, Covid has permanently changed career aspirations with part-time work rising and as some seek different vocations entirely. Others aren’t sure they’ll return to work at all.
“This is a long-term setback,” said Sarah House, a Wells Fargo & Co. senior economist. “The financial trade-off between that paid and unpaid work is going to change.”
That’s exactly what worries Russo. After she updated her LinkedIn profile to note she’d left Facebook, the usual flurry of messages from recruiters dried up. Most of the inquiries she’s gotten have been for lower-level roles.
“You have to think it’s that gap bias,” said Russo, 44, referring to her break in employment. “I’m a Black Latina with Apple and Facebook experience, you’d think I’d be the exact candidate you’d want to bring in.”
Nearly half a million women rejoined the U.S. workforce in March, marking an inflection point in the so-called women’s recession that is hindering economies globally. But there are still nearly 2 million fewer U.S. women in the labor force than before Covid. And Black women in particular are falling behind other groups in job gains.
Policy makers are keen to help women stage a comeback. A promising start: President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package that includes supports for schools and parents and his more recent proposal for upgrading child-care centers.
Women with children face considerable challenges as they navigate a return, in part because they are frequently considered less productive or committed, said Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and the advocacy group Marshall Plan for Moms. That’s only worsened because of work-from-home arrangements, she said.