What will the end of furlough mean for women’s employment?

Despite the latest data showing that one-quarter of employers across the UK were still using the scheme, the UK Government’s Job Retention Scheme is scheduled to finish at the end of September.

Furlough has been a welcome, if imperfect, intervention by the UK Government. The scheme has supressed unemployment, with cumulative data showing that over 910,000 jobs in Scotland have been furloughed over the course of the pandemic. Given women’s concentration in service sectors such as retail and hospitality, the scheme has enabled women who work in these sectors to protect some of their income during prolonged periods of sector shutdowns.

The decision to end the scheme in September has been viewed by some as an arbitrary decision, not tied to any particular milestone in the pandemic or the state of the economy. Indeed, the trajectory of the pandemic still remains somewhat unclear. In Scotland, positive cases and hospitalisations have been on the rise again and it is likely that there may be further surges in the winter months. In the absence of furlough to protect jobs during any future lockdowns or sector shutdowns, there are concerns about unemployment in the coming months.

Data on the Job Retention Scheme shows that 116,500 employees remain on furlough in Scotland. While women accounted for majority of those on furlough in Scotland from July 2020 to April 2021, the latest data shows that women account for 49% of those still on furlough. Previous analysis by Close the Gap found that younger women were more likely to be furloughed than their male counterparts. This remains true, with women making up 55% of furloughed staff among those aged under 18. However, the highest take-up rates of furlough now reside among the over 65 age group, with 8% take-up among women in this age group and 9% among men.

Declining rates of furlough among women is primarily driven by decreases in the number of jobs on furlough in sectors such as accommodation and food services. However, while furlough rates are declining in these sectors, over one-third (35%) of furloughed jobs in Scotland reside in female-dominated retail and hospitality. This creates a potentially negative outlook for women’s employment in these sectors.

The Scottish Government’s Programme for Government, published earlier this month, notes that the full impact of COVID-19 on employment will only become clear with the end of the Job Retention Scheme. Certainly, a number of factors makes it difficult to determine the impact the end of furlough will have on unemployment in Scotland:

• While declining rates of furlough over recent months could imply that employment will remain relatively stable at the end of the scheme, occupations and sectors with continued elevated rates of furlough, such as air travel assistants (65.4% female), travel agency (93.3% female), and arts and entertainment (60% female), continue to face suppressed demand and tighter restrictions. Women’s dominance in these sectors would appear to put their employment at greater risk, because it cannot be assumed that furlough rates in these sectors will decline in the coming weeks
• Furlough rates in male-dominated sectors such as manufacturing no longer appear to be linked to the level of public health restrictions. Evidence points to employers in these male-dominated sectors continuing to furlough staff to counter the impact of Brexit and international trade issues, as opposed to the impact of the pandemic. Wider economic factors may therefore be inflating the male furlough rate, creating complexities in predicting the impact of the pandemic on women’s employment when furlough comes to an end.
• Those who lose their current job at the end of furlough will not necessarily become unemployed, with labour market analysts pointing to declining unemployment rates since the start of 2021 and rising vacancy rates as a cause for optimism. However, women who have been made redundant will face gendered barriers to re-entering employment, including a lack of flexible working, occupational segregation and discriminatory recruitment practice.

Due to the lag in labour market data, the impact of the end of the scheme won’t be visible in labour market data until December. For now, what’s certain is a lack of certainty around the impacts the end of furlough will have on unemployment in Scotland.

The Scottish Government expects disproportionately negative employment outcomes for women, as well as young people, Black and minority ethnic (BME) people, lone parents and disabled people. This is particularly significant, as these groups already face structural barriers to employment and, as a result of their intersecting identities, BME women and disabled women will face particular barriers to good quality employment. Consequently, Scottish Government have concluded that activity to drive up good, secure and well-paid employment opportunities for those at greatest risk of poverty will have to be prioritised in the aftermath of the pandemic. To date, however, this rhetoric has not yet translated to effective action on women’s in-work poverty and job insecurity in Scotland.

This focus on job quality, as well as job numbers, is extremely welcome as women’s employment is increasingly precarious, and concentrated in low-paid work.

Research from the IFS found that the aforementioned surge in job vacancies has been driven entirely by low-paying occupations, in which new job openings are around 20% higher than pre-pandemic. As the IFS also concluded that competition for new job opportunities is higher for women than it is for men, a focus on good quality employment will be critical in preventing women being funnelled into low-paid employment.

Unemployment rates will undoubtedly be an important indicator of economic recovery. However, if we are to meet the ambition of building a fairer economy in the aftermath of the pandemic, we need to move beyond a narrow focus on employment rates alone and ensure that fair work for women is core to economic recovery. Following the 2008 financial crisis, employment rates masked a rise in low paid work, slow wage growth, as well as increasing precarity and job insecurity in the labour market. This also reduced Scotland’s gender pay gap, not because there was an increase in women’s pay, but rather there was a downward pressure on men’s pay.

Many of the sectors which account for a large proportion of female job losses over the crisis are notoriously low paid and characterised by job insecurity. For example, four in ten of those working in female-dominated retail and wholesale are paid less than the real Living Wage. In hospitality, also a majority female workforce, 80% of workers reported that they were already struggling with their finances before going into lockdown. A return to the status quo will merely cement women’s labour market inequality and in-work poverty.

While furlough has gone some way to protect employment and earnings for some women, key features of the Job Retention Scheme actually increased the likelihood of women leaving work in order to care, particularly at the start of the crisis. As a result of the failure to embed gender analysis in policymaking, the House of Commons’ Women and Equalities Committee concluded that the design of furlough “overlooked - and in some respects continues to overlook - the specific and well-understood labour market and caring inequalities faced by women.”

As furlough comes to an end and the impacts of the pandemic on employment become clear, we cannot afford for women’s labour market equality to continue to be an afterthought in policymaking. It’s time to put gender equality at the heart of fair work and to prioritise policies and interventions which tackle occupational segregation, women’s low pay and the continued undervaluation of women’s work.

Scottish Government’s forthcoming National Strategy on Economic Transformation is an opportunity to prioritise action on the structural issues which underpin women’s economic inequality. Close the Gap has advocated that a fairer and greener economy has to be an economy that also works for women.

What’s Violence Against Women got to do with women’s labour market inequality? Close the Gap’s new animation explains.

Close the Gap has developed a short animation for Equally Safe at Work that explains the link between violence against women (VAW) and women’s labour market inequality. Tackling women’s inequality in the workplace is a necessary step in preventing VAW, so employers therefore have a key role to play.

Having an understanding of the causal story is a critical component of Equally Safe at Work. Employers need to understand the problem, and their role in designing and delivering solutions, if they are to develop gender-sensitive employment practice.

The evaluation of the pilot of Equally Safe at Work identified that there is a need for capacity building among employers and staff on the link between VAW, gender inequality, and women’s labour market inequality. This animation conveys a complex problem in a simple and accessible way. It will be used as a learning resource for employers engaged with Equally Safe at Work to build knowledge and awareness around VAW and women’s employment.

For more information on Equally Safe at Work, you can visit: https://www.equallysafeatwork.scot/workplace-gender-equality/

We're hiring!

Close the Gap are hiring for three new positions to support the delivery of our Equally Safe at Work employer accreditation programme.

Programme Officer (Equally Safe at Work)

Making sure a green economy also works for women

Prior to the outbreak of the Covid-19, green jobs and green skills were a key aspect of Scottish Government’s efforts to transition to a net zero economy. The ongoing crisis has brought further weight to these considerations, with focus turning to the importance of building a greener and fairer economy in the aftermath of the pandemic.

To-date, however, there has been little consideration of the potential impact of the growth in green jobs on women’s labour market equality in a “just transition”. This is despite evidence that “men’s jobs” will disproportionately benefit from further investment in green jobs and sectors.

While there is not a single agreed definition of green jobs, the Scottish Government and Skills Development Scotland’s Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan identified five broad areas of economic activity that are core to the net zero economy. The sectors are heavily male-dominated such as energy, transport, construction, agriculture, and manufacturing. Analysis by Close the Gap found that women account for less than one-quarter (22%) of people employed in these priority green sectors in Scotland. More specifically, men account for 84% of those employed in construction, and 77% of those employed in transport and storage in the Scottish labour market.

It’s therefore clear why increased focus and investment in these male-dominated sectors will disbenefit women, worsen women’s unemployment, widen the gender pay gap, and also risks exacerbating women’s poverty.

These priority sectors highlight that green infrastructure continues to be understood by the Scottish Government in traditional terms, focused on physical infrastructure such as transport and housing. Caring jobs are low carbon jobs and data analysed by the Women’s Budget Group suggests that investment in the care industry is 30% less polluting than the equivalent investment in construction, and would also produce 2.7 times as many jobs. As yet, however, little consideration has been afforded to the importance and opportunities of implementing large scale investment in all forms of green social infrastructure, including childcare and social care.

To avoid entrenching gender inequality, a drive for green jobs must be accompanied by measures to address occupational segregation, including the development of upskilling and reskilling opportunities which address the gendered barriers to training and development.This is not only vital from a gender perspective, but from an economic perspective too. As occupational segregation is correlated with sector skills shortages, ensuring that women are able to access green jobs is necessary to meet increasing demand for labour and tackling skills gaps.

Women’s access to green sectors is particularly important as women’s employment has been disproportionately impacted by Covid-19. Women are more likely to work in a shutdown sector, such as hospitality and retail; women’s poverty rates, and subsequently child poverty rates, will rise as a result of low-paid women being particularly affected by job disruption; and women are more likely to lose their job over the course of the recession. Occupational segregation is key driver of this, with job disruption disproportionately impacting women because men and women tend to work in different jobs and sectors. Investment in male-dominated sectors at a time when women are more likely to have lost their job, without focused activity to disrupt occupational segregation, will thus widen the gender pay gap and women’s inequality in the labour market.

The Scottish Government’s plans to realign investment in education and training towards green jobs should be coupled by action to ensure that skills policy is informed by evidence on women’s access to skills acquisition and in-work training and development. The Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan contains actions on tackling occupational segregation as a core aim of skills and training programmes, promoting inclusive workplace practices, including flexible working, in target sectors and developing upskilling and reskilling measures informed by barriers faced by under-represented groups, including women. It’s vital that these actions are prioritised in implementation. Currently, it remains unclear how these actions have been progressed.

The Social Renewal Advisory Board also recommended that the Scottish Government designate a proportion of the Green Jobs Fund specifically for enabling people who are under-represented in these sectors to train and access green jobs. The Board also call for targets and monitoring of how the fund is used, including through the gathering of intersectional data on participants. These actions are critical to ensuring that skills and training programmes designed to assist in the drive for green jobs do not cement women’s inequality in the labour market. Scottish Government is yet to respond in full to the Board’s recommendations.

The Scottish Government and its delivery agencies also have to put fair work for women at the heart of plans to grow green sectors, with a focus on demand-side interventions that tackle employment practice which sustains women’s under-representation in these sectors. This means addressing a lack of quality part-time and flexible working; ensuring fair and transparent recruitment and development practices; and tackling male-oriented workplace cultures.

A focus on a green economic recovery through the creation and development of green jobs will not necessarily mean a fairer economy for women. In order to transform the economy so that is both greener and fairer, tackling occupational segregation and women’s broader equality at work must be core to economic recovery policymaking. We cannot have a “just transition” without enabling women and men to equally benefit from this labour market shift. This requires concentrated action to tackle the structural barriers women face in entering green jobs.