Over two thirds of the 200,000 people who have lost jobs in English and Welsh local authorities since the last election are women, according to research by the GMB union.
According to the research, which is based on government figures, 146,690 women lost jobs in local government between June 2010 and December 2011, 68 per cent of the 210,470 jobs lost overall.
In some regions, such as the south east, women accounted for over three-quarters of the jobs lost, and in some councils like Slough, the number of women who lost their jobs exceeded the number of jobs lost overall.
But a spokeswoman for Slough Borough Council said: “The majority of the people working here are women.
“All our corporate directors, bar one, are women, our chief executive is a woman, all our policy team are women.”
Kamaljeet Jandu, GMB national officer for equalities, said the drop was entirely predictable because the public sector employed more women than men.
According to the Local Government Association, 75.8 per cent of all local government workers are women, and whilst male employment in councils fell by ten per cent between December 2010 and December 2011, 6.8 per cent of female workers lost their jobs.
Jandu said the drop in the number of women employed in the public sector represents a serious loss of income for their families.
“Many households depend on having income from two wage earners to pay the mortgage and the household bills.
“The impact will be even worse in the quarter of households with children that are headed by lone parents, 90 per cent of whom are women,” he said.
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