Working women doing better
Job fields that tend to have more females, such as education and health care, are faring better during recent recession.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
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It's still hard for Fairborn resident Andy Butner to talk about that day last August when he and 22 other guys were called into a room at Production Control Units Inc. and told they were out of jobs.
Since then, Butner's wife, Debbie, who works at Children's Medical Center of Dayton, has been the breadwinner.
"I feel fortunate to have the job that I do because that keeps us going," she said.
She wasn't surprised to learn Friday, Feb. 6, that labor statistics show women are positioned to surpass the number of men in the workforce for the first time in U.S. history.
One major reason: 82 percent of the job losses during this severe economic recession have affected men, who are heavily represented in hard-hit industries like manufacturing.
Many women work in fields like education and health care that are faring better.
For 14 years, Andy Butner, 58, worked at the Moraine plant, building machines and tooling for the automotive industry.
He said it's been rough watching his wife go off to work while he still hunts for a new job.
But he knows it could be worse.
Some of his laid-off co-workers "don't have a wife working or in as secure a job," he said, "so that means a lot."
