Women were the driving force behind August’s stronger-than-expected jobs report, accounting for 158,000 — or roughly 98% — of the 162,000 positions added during the month, according to a CNBC analysis of data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Men added just 4,000 net jobs in August, meaning their contribution to overall payroll growth was nearly 40 times smaller than women’s. The Economic Security Project, a progressive nonprofit, first flagged the disparity in Friday’s data.
With the latest figures, the gap between the number of jobs held by women versus men climbed to record levels, according to Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab. "We are in the midst of a shift," she said. "It is changing right before our eyes."
A widening gender divide over the past year
The August numbers are part of a broader trend. Compared with 12 months earlier, the BLS found the seasonally adjusted level of employed women rose by more than 870,000, while employed men fell by nearly 1.5 million over the same period.
That divergence helps explain why the unemployment rates for men and women have moved in opposite directions. In August, the seasonally adjusted jobless rate for women was 3.9%, down 0.4 percentage points from a year earlier. The male unemployment rate jumped to 4.4%, matching its August 2025 level.
Sector mix plays a role
Part of women’s recent outperformance can be traced to which industries are driving job growth. Healthcare — the engine of labor market expansion for more than a year — continued adding positions in August, and more than four out of five workers in that industry are women.
The local government and education sector also rebounded strongly in August, contributing 42,000 jobs, or about a quarter of the total net gain. Women hold close to three-quarters of positions related to education, training and libraries.
Yet Ullrich noted that women also showed hiring strength in sectors traditionally considered male-dominated, such as manufacturing.
A mostly positive headline, but not uniformly good news
The strength among women helped push the overall nonfarm payrolls figure far beyond expectations. The 162,000-role expansion was more than triple what economists had forecast.
Still, some experts caution against reading too much into any single month. Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, noted in a Friday social media post that month-to-month gender data can be volatile. She advised focusing on longer-term trends tied to gender, which she said reveal what she called a "mom-cession" — the phenomenon of mothers of young children leaving the workforce.
Ullrich also offered a more measured interpretation. Because women tend to earn less than men, a higher share of jobs going to women could indicate companies are focusing hiring on lower-wage roles. And since women are more likely to hold multiple jobs, Ullrich suggested some gains could reflect workers stretching themselves thin.
"You could look at it and say, ‘Yay, women,’" she said. But, "I don’t think it’s necessarily a positive story for women overall."
Source: www.cnbc.com — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/04/jobs-report-women-payrolls.html
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