Women Returners

Of the thousands of professional women currently on a career break, around 427,000 want to return to work at some point in the future. However, research shows that, upon returning to work, three in five women could end up in lower-skilled jobs and 29,000 women returners would prefer to work more hours but are unable to do so due to the lack of flexible working opportunities (click here for link to PWC's report on women returners). At the end of January the Women and Work All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) launched its first annual report on this very topic. The report analyses the barriers that a career break of more than six months can present to women returners and makes recommendations, both to employers and to the government, on how they can better support these women. The report also highlights the economic advantages of increasing the employment numbers of women with dependent children (many of whom take maternity leave and additional time off to care for their