We know that in economic crises women are disproportionately affected. As the minister pointed out in the last hour, we saw it in the 2008 recession and we're seeing it now.
I can give you some examples of how that's happening now. In March when we saw lockdowns, women experienced job losses at twice the rate of men, and in May, when we started to open the economy back up and jobs started coming back, men gained employment at twice the rate of women.
There are certain groups of women that are disproportionately affected. In fact, younger women are still 11% away from their pre-COVID employment rate. They have not gained back their employment. These are young women between the ages of 15 and 24. They are newcomer women, immigrant women and visible minority women. On that latter point in particular, visible minority women are 11% away from their pre-COVID employment rate. Indigenous women are only at 88.4% of their pre-pandemic employment rate. We know that this is in part because of care work and in part because of industry segregation and the sectors women tend to be overrepresented in.
These are some of the ways women have been impacted economically and some of the reasons why.