Women fared better in labor study

Women’s employment during economic recessions is more resilient than men’s, even expanding during previous recessions, according to a new analysis by a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics economist.

The share of women’s employment during the most recent recession, economist Catherine A. Wood wrote, reached 50 percent of nonfarm employment for the first time since the federal agency began keeping track in 1964.

Back then, women only held 31.7 percent of total nonfarm employment. In the decades that followed, women’s employment rose steadily but began leveling off in the early 1990s.

Wood’s analysis found that job losses during recessions are typically lopsided, with more men losing their jobs than women.

The reason, she explained, is that more men work in goods-producing industries. "Because the nature of employment in the goods-producing industries is more cyclical, these industries have seen periods of job expansion and contraction," she wrote.

Women, meanwhile, outnumber men in the service-producing industries.

Smartphone thefts soared in 2013

There were 4.5 million smartphones lost or stolen in the U.S. last year, up from 2.8 million in 2012, according to a report released last week.

Thefts were largely responsible for the increase in devices that were permanently separated from their owners, according to Consumer Reports’ annual State of the Net Survey. The organization, which tests products, said device thefts nearly doubled from 1.6 million in 2012 to 3.1 million in 2013.

The number of lost devices increased from 1.2 million in 2012 to 1.4 million in 2013. More than 3,100 adults in the U.S. participated in the Consumer Reports survey that was used to calculate the figures.

"Our survey revealed that the number of lost and stolen smartphones is on the rise, and too many smartphone users are needlessly imperiling their personal data by not taking basic security measures," said Glenn Derene, Consumer Reports’ electronics editor.

Consumer Reports recommends that at the minimum consumers secure their smartphones by setting up a four-digit lock code.

The survey comes after top phone manufacturers and wireless carriers announced their commitment to begin including basic anti-theft tools on all smartphones made after July 2015 for sale in the U.S.

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