US Women Hold Jobs Lead Over Men for Longest Stretch Since 2010

US women have held more jobs than men for eight consecutive months as of September, the longest stretch since 2010, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Indeed. The shift reflects structural changes in the labor market rather than a single month's hiring pattern. Seasonally adjusted male employment fell by about 1.2 million year over year, while female employment rose by more than 650,000. Health care, where nearly four in five workers are women, accounted for more than half of September's payroll growth, though hiring in the sector has slowed. Government employment contracted by 17,000 jobs, diluting women's monthly gains. Construction added 11,000 positions, driven by nonresidential specialty trade contractors tied to the data center boom, with related job postings up nearly 130% since June 2024. The American labor market has entered unfamiliar territory: women have now held more jobs than men for eight consecutive months, the longest such stretch in more than a decade and a half, according to an analysis of federal employment data by the hiring platform Indeed. The divergence is not merely a statistical curiosity. It reflects a structural shift in which sectors are expanding, which are contracting, and how those changes are filtering through to workers of different genders. While men still dominate many high-paying fields, the sectors that have been adding the most positions over the past year are ones where women are heavily represented. "Back then, the gap emerged because men were losing jobs," said Cory Stahle, senior economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, referring to the 2010 episode. "This time, it's because women are gaining them." The latest snapshot from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released Friday, showed that U.S. nonfarm payrolls expanded by 29,000 jobs on net in September, well short of the 84,000 increase economists had expected. Men accounted for slightly more than half of that monthly gain, according to an analysis of the BLS data. But the prior month told a starkly different story: men represented just 2% of net payroll growth in August, underscoring how volatile single-month figures can be. The longer view is more revealing. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of employed men in the United States was about 1.2 million lower in September than a year earlier. Over the same period, women's employment climbed by more than 650,000. That gap, economists say, is driven less by any single month's hiring and more by the persistent erosion of male employment alongside steady gains for women. The pattern owes much to the industry mix. Health care has been the most reliable engine of U.S. job creation for several years, and in September it accounted for more than half of overall payroll expansion. Nearly four out of every five workers in the sector are women. Construction, another bright spot, added 11,000 jobs on net, with growth heavily concentrated in nonresidential specialty trade contractors—the electricians and other skilled workers who build data centers, among other projects. That segment added 12,300 positions, offsetting losses in residential specialty trade work. Yet even health care is showing signs of cooling. The sector added roughly 17,000 jobs in September, according to the BLS, a sizable chunk of the month's total but only about half its average monthly gain of 33,000 over the past year. Because health care hires at a slower pace, women may not have received as large a boost from the industry as in earlier months. Nicole Bachaud, an economist at ZipRecruiter, attributed the deceleration in health care hiring to funding pressures that are making it harder for employers to pay for additional staff. "So the demand is there, but the execution on that demand is limited by the federal funding environment right now," she said. Government employment, another sector where women make up a large share of the workforce, contracted by 17,000 jobs in September. That decline further diluted the overall gains for women during the month, Stahle noted. White-collar sectors also shed positions, with the information industry falling to 2.7 million employed workers from a 2022 peak of 3.1 million. The data center boom, meanwhile, has become a quiet pillar of construction employment. Job postings related to data centers have surged by nearly 130% since June 2024, according to Indeed's data, even as overall U.S. postings have declined. Stahle said the scale of capital pouring into data center construction is likely to support continued near-term hiring in the field. "With the amount of money that's being put into these data centers and into that employment, I imagine that also in the short term is going to be an area where we'll see some continued growth," he said. Whether that boom can serve as a durable source of employment remains an open question. Guy Berger, a senior fellow at the research organization Burning Glass Institute, cautioned that if the data center expansion proves shorter-lived than anticipated, the labor market could be left with a surplus of specialized tradespeople. "All of a sudden, we trained a lot of electricians, people like that, to do stuff that is no longer needed," he said. For now, the gender split in employment reflects a labor market in transition. The industries that defined male employment growth in earlier decades are no longer the ones expanding most rapidly, while sectors dominated by women—health care above all—continue to add jobs, albeit at a moderating pace. The result is a workforce where women's share of employment has reached a level not sustained since the aftermath of the last recession, and the forces behind that shift show few signs of reversing in the near term. Add preferred source Once added, BigGo Finance appears first in Google Search Top Stories, so you get the broadest, most up-to-the-minute, and most comprehensive global financial news first. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌