In the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian women without a college education were among the least employed subgroups in the United States.

As businesses reopen across the U.S., returning to work carries the risk of contracting the virus, particularly for those in jobs that require close interaction with other people. But for Asian women, the recent murders of six Asian women in Atlanta highlight another obstacle to returning to work: fears of anti-Asian attacks.

A recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago notes that 56% of Asian women (aged 25 to 65) with a high school degree or less were employed before the pandemic. In the early months of the COVID-19 crisis, employment among this subgroup dropped to 32% — worse than any other studied group when controlling for the same education level.

Less-educated Asian women were able to recover a decent share of losses in the third quarter, rebounding to 46% (compared to the overall women employment rate of 48%).

Other cohorts, such as Black and Hispanic women, have also been adversely impacted by job losses. The return to work for those groups has been slower compared to Asian communities.

High-contact, low-income work

Steep job losses during the pandemic may have something to do with high Asian employment in high-contact settings like restaurants, an industry that is the heart of many Asian communities and a major employer for lower-educated workers.

A Center for American Progress (CAP) analysis of U.S. Census data shows that 6.9% of all employed Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) work in restaurants and other food services. Another 3.2% work in nail salons and other personal care services, another high-contact industry.

But the Chicago Fed paper notes that the wide differences in job losses among Asian women (and men) were still observed even when controlling for occupation and industry, raising questions about whether or not discrimination or other forces are at play.

"On top of economic distress, AAPI women have experienced alarming surges in racialized violence and harassment fueled by derogatory rhetoric and scapegoating of the AAPI community throughout the pandemic," CAP wrote in its March 2021 report.

That concern exists particularly among the 1.4 million AAPI women working in jobs that pay median hourly earnings below $15 an hour. CAP notes how low-income jobs will vary within the AAPI subgroups; the median Taiwanese woman between 2015 and 2019 made $70,000 a year whereas the median Vietnamese woman made just $36,500.

For Asian women who have returned to work since the devastating job losses last year, safety at work and anti-Asian hate crimes are now elevated risks.

Brian Cheung is a reporter covering the Fed, economics, and banking for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter @bcheungz.

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