| Updated: April 2, 2021, 1:37 p.m.
Women have taken the brunt of job losses in Utah during the coronavirus pandemic, according to Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson.
Of the 12,000 positions lost in 2020, 4,000 were held by men, while twice as many 8,000 belonged to women, she said.
“Our low unemployment numbers show that we have gained back most of the ground that we’ve lost,” Henderson said at a news conference Thursday. “But we’ve also seen that occupations held predominantly by women are recovering at a slower rate than occupations held mostly by men.”
To help women and other Utahns get back into the workforce, Henderson and Gov. Spencer Cox announced the state’s new “returnship initiative.”