IT'S a long time since women’s wages were considered "pin money". With the news last week that gender inequality remains intractable, the position of women in the economy is more severely threatened by the Government's spending cuts.

Women’s employment is set to fall across the UK as public sector job cuts begin to bite.

The share of women working as public servants has risen by 5% over the past 10 years in the North East.

There are now around 735,000 more women nationally working in public service jobs, such as teaching, nursing and local government, than a decade ago.

The North East has the highest percentage of women working in the public sector, at 39% of all women workers.

This means that women’s employment is particularly vulnerable to public spending cuts.

The public sector has been the main source of growth in women’s employment in the last decade.

For women, the public sector has been responsible for 84% of net jobs growth, whereas for men it has only created 39% of net new jobs.

While the poorer rate of private sector jobs growth over the decade is partly a result of the global recession, the sharp gender divide shows the extent to which women’s rising employment rates have been linked to new public sector employment opportunities, which often provide more family-friendly workplaces than the private sector.

Over the last decade there have also been large increases in the proportion of men working in the public sector in some areas of the country, again with the largest rises in the North East, at 4%.

As employment levels in the public sector have grown by 16% over the last decade, employment opportunities in the private sector overall have only grown by 3% over the same time frame, with some industries witnessing real decline and heavy job cuts.

Across the UK, employment levels in manufacturing have reduced by 32%, with nearly 1.5 million job losses since 2000. This has hit the proportion of men working in manufacturing, particularly in the North East where it has fallen 10%.

This illustrates the need for the Government to change the direction of its economic strategy. With unemployment already close to 2.5m, it needs to focus all its efforts on tackling the jobs gap by better supporting manufacturing, creating new, green, sustainable jobs and recognising the vital role that public sector employment plays for many families and communities.

:: Kevin Rowan, regional secretary, Northern TUC