Number of stay-at-home mothers drops as more women seek work The Office for National Statistics said fewer women were being classed as 'stay-at-home' mothers - and therefore "economically inactive" - because more were seeking paid work. Over the period, some 65,000 women had found employment, while 3,000 fewer women were unemployed. The number of people in work also fell, down 43,000 in the first quarter, the biggest fall since 2011. John Philpott, an economist at The Jobs Economist, said: "The UK jobs market clearly took a turn for the worse in the first quarter of the year. Ironically, while 2012 saw strong employment growth and falling unemployment in a flat lining economy, the slightly better GDP growth registered in the early months of 2013 has been accompanied by falling employment and a renewed rise in joblessness. Men, however, have been "hit hardest," Mr Philpott said, with 18,000 more men out of work compared to the previous quarter, taking the male unemployment toll to 1.43m, compared to 1.09m women unemployed. Men and people on temporary contracts or working as self-employed contractors are being hit hardest by this latest bout of weakness in the job market, suggesting that employers are primarily making adjustments to the flexible component of the workforce in the face economic uncertainty. The helps explain the apparent paradox of a corresponding fall in redundancies, which will generally rise only when employers are cutting their core permanent staff.