WASHINGTON — Women have now outnumbered men on U.S. payrolls for eight consecutive months, marking the longest such stretch since 2010 and revealing a major shift underneath an American labor market that added just 29,000 jobs in September.
The headline jobs number was weak.
But underneath it was another trend that may prove much more important.
The seasonally adjusted number of employed men was about:
1.2 million lower
in September than a year earlier.
Meanwhile, women’s employment increased by more than:
650,000
over the same period.
That does not mean men failed to gain jobs in September.
In fact, men accounted for slightly more than half of the month’s net payroll growth.
But over a longer period, women have been gaining employment much faster.
And economists say the industries creating jobs help explain why.
WOMEN HAVE OUTNUMBERED MEN FOR EIGHT STRAIGHT MONTHS
According to an analysis of federal employment data by Indeed Hiring Lab, women have held more U.S. payroll jobs than men for:
eight consecutive months.
That is the longest stretch since:
2010.
The comparison to 2010 is important.
Back then, the gender gap followed the Great Recession.
Male-dominated industries such as:
Construction
Manufacturing
and
Finance
had suffered major job losses.
This time, the mechanism is different.
Women are not merely overtaking men because male employment is collapsing across the board.
Women are gaining more jobs.
INDEED SAYS THIS TIME WOMEN ARE ACTUALLY WINNING JOBS
Indeed senior economist Cory Stahle described the difference clearly.
During the earlier period, women surpassed men largely because male employment was falling.
The current situation is being driven much more by:
female job gains.
Indeed’s analysis found women accounted for approximately:
82% of employment growth
over the year through August.
That is remarkable because women represent only slightly more than half of total payroll employment.
The labor market is therefore creating jobs disproportionately in sectors where women are heavily represented.
SEPTEMBER’S OVERALL JOB GROWTH WAS VERY WEAK
The U.S. economy added only:
29,000 jobs
in September.
Economists had expected roughly:
84,000 to 90,000.
That means actual hiring came in at only about one-third of expectations.
The weak result also followed downward revisions to previous months.
July payroll growth was revised from:
+21,000
to:
-10,000.
August was revised from:
+162,000
to:
+133,000.
Together, July and August had:
60,000 fewer jobs
than previously reported.
UNEMPLOYMENT ROSE TO 4.2%
The national unemployment rate increased slightly from:
4.1%
to
4.2%.
That represented approximately:
7.1 million unemployed Americans.
But the increase was partly driven by more people entering the labor force.
The labor-force participation rate rose from:
61.6%
to
61.8%.
That can actually be a positive sign.
People are counted as unemployed only if they are actively looking for work.
So when more people begin searching for jobs, the unemployment rate can rise even if employment is also increasing.
ADULT MEN STILL HAVE LOW UNEMPLOYMENT
Adult men had an unemployment rate of:
3.9%.
That was actually down slightly from:
4.0% in August.
Adult women had an unemployment rate of:
3.6%.
That was up from:
3.5%.
The gap is therefore relatively small.
This is why the current gender story should not be described as an unemployment crisis for men.
It is more accurately a story about where new jobs are being created.
HEALTH CARE IS THE BIGGEST PART OF THE STORY
Health care has become one of America’s most reliable engines of employment growth.
The sector added approximately:
17,000 jobs
in September.
When combined with social assistance, the broader category added:
23,000 jobs.
That means health care and social assistance accounted for most of the entire month’s net job creation.
Women make up close to:
four out of every five workers
in health care.
So when that sector expands rapidly, women naturally capture a large share of new jobs.
HEALTH CARE HAS BEEN CARRYING THE JOB MARKET FOR YEARS
This is not a one-month phenomenon.
Health care has repeatedly ranked among the strongest sources of employment growth over the past several years.
Demand is being driven by several structural factors.
The U.S. population is getting older.
More Americans require:
Hospital care
Outpatient treatment
Home health services
Nursing
and
Long-term care.
Those are labor-intensive services that are difficult to automate completely.
That creates persistent demand for workers.
AGING BABY BOOMERS ARE CREATING LONG-TERM DEMAND
The demographic effect could continue for years.
Millions of Baby Boomers are entering their:
70s
and
80s.
That increases demand for:
Nurses
Medical assistants
Therapists
Home health aides
and
Care workers.
Those occupations remain disproportionately female.
So even if the broader economy grows slowly, health care can continue adding jobs.
That structural advantage is helping women in the labor market.
WOMEN HAVE ALSO GAINED IN MALE-DOMINATED INDUSTRIES
The trend is not entirely explained by health care.
Indeed found women gained more jobs than men over the prior year across nearly every major sector.
That included some traditionally male-heavy industries such as:
Manufacturing
and
Professional and business services.
That suggests something deeper is happening.
Women are not only benefiting from female-dominated sectors.
They are gradually expanding their presence across a broader portion of the economy.
CONSTRUCTION ACTUALLY ADDED JOBS IN SEPTEMBER
One surprise in the September report was construction.
The industry added:
11,000 jobs.
Nonresidential specialty trade contractors added approximately:
12,000.
That likely includes work connected to:
Data centers
Factories
Power infrastructure
and
Large commercial projects.
Construction remains one of the most heavily male-dominated sectors in the economy.
So this month’s gain provided some support for male employment.
DATA CENTERS ARE BECOMING A NEW BLUE-COLLAR JOB ENGINE
Artificial intelligence is not only creating jobs for software engineers.
The AI infrastructure boom is generating demand for:
Electricians
Pipefitters
HVAC technicians
Construction workers
Equipment operators
and
Power-system specialists.
Job postings connected to data-center construction have risen sharply since 2024.
This could create an important source of employment for men because many skilled-trade occupations remain heavily male.
In other words:
AI may be threatening some white-collar jobs while creating new blue-collar ones.
MANUFACTURING ALSO ADDED 9,000 JOBS
Manufacturing added:
9,000 jobs
in September.
That marked the fourth consecutive month of employment growth in the sector.
Since a recent low in December 2025, manufacturing employment has increased by about:
72,000 jobs.
Growth included industries such as:
Machinery manufacturing
and
Plastic and rubber products.
That is another positive area for male employment.
But the scale remains relatively small compared with the long-term decline manufacturing experienced over several decades.
MANUFACTURING IS NO LONGER THE MASS EMPLOYER IT ONCE WAS
At its peak, American manufacturing employed an enormous share of men without college degrees.
Automation and globalization changed that.
Factories now produce much more output with fewer workers.
Even when manufacturing expands, many modern facilities rely heavily on:
Robotics
Automation
Software
and
Advanced machinery.
That means new factories do not necessarily create the same number of jobs as old ones.
The long-term decline of manufacturing employment has therefore had a disproportionate impact on men.
MEN HAVE HISTORICALLY DEPENDED MORE ON GOODS-PRODUCING JOBS
Men remain much more concentrated in:
Construction
Manufacturing
Transportation
Mining
and
Maintenance.
These industries can pay relatively high wages without always requiring a four-year college degree.
But they are also often:
Cyclical
Capital intensive
and
Sensitive to interest rates.
When the economy slows, hiring can disappear quickly.
Health care tends to behave differently.
People still need medical treatment during recessions.
That gives female-heavy health care employment greater stability.
WOMEN HAVE ALSO MADE BIGGER EDUCATIONAL GAINS
Education helps explain part of the longer-term shift.
Women now earn a larger share of:
Bachelor’s degrees
Master’s degrees
and many professional qualifications.
That has expanded female employment in sectors such as:
Health care
Education
Business
Law
and
Professional services.
At the same time, men without college degrees have faced declining opportunities in many traditional occupations.
That educational gap can increasingly affect lifetime earnings.
PRIME-AGE EMPLOYMENT SHOWS A SMALL BUT IMPORTANT GAP
For workers aged:
25 to 54,
the employment-to-population ratio has remained relatively strong.
But there is a small gender divergence.
Prime-age male employment is slightly lower than a year earlier.
Prime-age female employment is slightly higher.
The differences are not huge individually.
But sustained over many months, they contribute to the broader shift.
This is why economists pay attention to trends rather than a single monthly jobs report.
WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENT GAINS HAVE BEEN REMARKABLY BROAD
Indeed’s analysis shows women led employment growth across a wide range of industries.
That is important because it undermines a simple explanation that:
“Women are winning only because health care is hiring.”
Health care is absolutely a major factor.
But female employment gains have occurred across much of the economy.
That suggests women are increasing their representation in roles that historically leaned male as well.
GOVERNMENT JOB LOSSES ACTUALLY HURT WOMEN IN SEPTEMBER
There was one important counterweight.
Government employment fell by:
17,000 jobs
in September.
Women hold a large share of government positions, especially in:
Education
Administration
Public health
and
Social services.
So government job losses reduced the normal female employment advantage during the month.
That helps explain why men accounted for slightly more than half of September’s net job growth even though women have dominated the longer-term trend.
INFORMATION JOBS FELL AGAIN
The information sector lost around:
10,000 jobs.
This category includes areas such as:
Publishing
Media
Telecommunications
and some technology-related businesses.
The sector has faced pressure from:
Automation
Artificial intelligence
Streaming disruption
and
Corporate cost cutting.
These losses affect both genders.
But some technology occupations remain male dominated.
That makes continued white-collar technology layoffs another potential pressure on male employment.
PROFESSIONAL AND BUSINESS SERVICES ALSO DECLINED
Professional and business services lost approximately:
9,000 jobs.
Temporary help services alone fell by:
10,900.
Temporary hiring is often treated as an early economic indicator.
Companies frequently reduce temporary workers before cutting permanent staff.
Persistent declines can therefore signal that businesses are becoming cautious.
This could eventually affect both male and female workers more broadly.
FINANCE LOST ANOTHER 7,000 JOBS
Financial activities employment declined by approximately:
7,000.
The sector is now down roughly:
129,000 jobs
from its May 2025 peak.
Most of that decline has occurred in:
Insurance carriers
and related businesses.
Finance historically contains many high-paying professional jobs.
Weakness there shows that today’s employment divide is not simply blue collar versus white collar.
Some highly educated workers are also seeing pressure.
AI IS RAISING NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT WHITE-COLLAR EMPLOYMENT
Artificial intelligence is increasingly capable of performing tasks involving:
Writing
Coding
Data analysis
Research
Customer support
and
Administrative work.
Companies have begun citing AI when announcing some job cuts.
But economists caution against attributing the entire slowdown in white-collar employment to artificial intelligence.
Interest rates, cost cutting and weaker hiring demand also matter.
The evidence so far does not show AI causing economywide mass unemployment.
But it may be changing the kinds of roles employers want.
MEN MAY FACE A DOUBLE TRANSITION
Historically, technological disruption hit many male blue-collar occupations first.
Automation reduced factory jobs.
Mechanization reduced agricultural jobs.
Now AI may increasingly affect white-collar sectors where men also hold large shares of technical and managerial positions.
That means some male workers could face pressure from both directions:
traditional industrial jobs are no longer as abundant,
while some newer office jobs are being automated or reorganized.
That makes skills adaptation increasingly important.
WOMEN’S ADVANTAGE IS NOT GUARANTEED
The current trend should not be interpreted as women permanently winning the labor market.
Economic cycles can change quickly.
A recession could hit health care differently.
Government layoffs could accelerate.
Care-sector funding could be cut.
Construction could boom.
Manufacturing could expand.
Different industries respond differently to economic conditions.
Gender employment patterns could therefore reverse again.
That happened after both:
2010
and
the pandemic period.
WOMEN HAVE SURPASSED MEN BEFORE
Women briefly outnumbered men on U.S. payrolls during the aftermath of the:
2007-2009 Great Recession.
Male-dominated industries were devastated.
Women again briefly surpassed men around:
2019 and early 2020.
Then the pandemic hit.
Women suffered disproportionately because:
Hospitality
Retail
Education
and
Care responsibilities
were heavily affected.
That period became widely known as a:
“she-cession.”
The fact that women now again exceed men shows how dramatically the labor market has shifted since then.
COVID INITIALLY HIT WOMEN MUCH HARDER
During the pandemic, millions of women left work.
Schools and childcare centers closed.
Service-sector jobs disappeared.
Women frequently carried more family-care responsibilities.
Female labor-force participation fell sharply.
The recovery since then has been substantial.
Remote work, improved labor demand and strong health-care employment helped bring many women back.
The current payroll gap partly reflects that long recovery.
MEN STILL HAVE A MUCH HIGHER LABOR-FORCE PARTICIPATION RATE
There is another important piece of context.
Men are still more likely than women to participate in the labor force overall.
Male labor-force participation remains significantly higher.
That means men are still more likely to be:
Working
or
Actively seeking work.
The payroll statistic measures employment numbers, not the entire adult population.
So women outnumbering men in payroll jobs does not mean women have overtaken men on every labor-market measure.
MALE LABOR-FORCE PARTICIPATION HAS BEEN DECLINING FOR DECADES
The bigger historical issue is that male participation has fallen significantly from earlier generations.
In the 1950s and 1960s, an overwhelming share of prime-age men were either working or actively looking for work.
That share has gradually declined.
Economists have debated the causes for years.
Possible factors include:
Deindustrialization
Automation
Disability
Incarceration
Education differences
Family structure
and
Regional economic decline.
There is no single explanation.
WORKERS WITHOUT COLLEGE DEGREES FACE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE
The labor market increasingly rewards education and specialized skills.
Men without college degrees historically had access to strong middle-class jobs in:
Factories
Construction
Mining
and
Transportation.
Many of those jobs still exist.
But there are fewer of them relative to the size of the workforce.
At the same time, fast-growing sectors such as health care often require:
Licensing
Certification
or
Post-secondary education.
Helping workers transition into expanding industries may become a major policy challenge.
HEALTH CARE COULD BE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR MORE MEN
One obvious possibility is greater male participation in health care.
Men remain a minority in many occupations including:
Nursing
Medical assisting
Home health
and
Caregiving.
Yet these are among the fastest-growing areas of the economy.
If more men entered them, the gender employment gap could narrow.
There is no economic reason many of these occupations must remain overwhelmingly female.
Cultural expectations and career preferences play a significant role.
SKILLED TRADES ARE ALSO BECOMING MORE IMPORTANT
At the same time, men may benefit from another growing category:
Skilled trades.
Massive investment in:
AI data centers
Semiconductor factories
Power grids
Factories
and
Infrastructure
is increasing demand for workers such as:
Electricians
Welders
HVAC technicians
Plumbers
and
Industrial mechanics.
Many of those jobs do not require four-year university degrees.
They can also offer competitive salaries.
That could provide an important pathway for workers displaced from older industries.
WAGES ARE ALSO SLOWING
The September report contained another warning.
Average hourly earnings increased only:
0.1% month over month.
Over the past year, wages rose:
3.0%.
That was the slowest annual wage growth in several years.
If inflation remains above that level, real purchasing power can fall.
So even workers who remain employed may feel financially worse off.
This is another reason the headline unemployment rate does not tell the full story.
THE LABOR MARKET HAS BECOME “LOW HIRE, LOW FIRE”
Economists increasingly describe the U.S. job market as:
low hire, low fire.
Companies are not conducting mass layoffs.
But they are also reluctant to hire aggressively.
Job openings have declined.
Quit rates remain low.
Workers are staying in their positions longer.
That can make the labor market feel particularly difficult for:
New graduates
Career changers
and
People who lose jobs.
A stable unemployment rate can therefore coexist with considerable worker frustration.
THE FED IS WATCHING THIS VERY CLOSELY
The weak September jobs report immediately affected expectations for monetary policy.
Before the report, markets saw a meaningful possibility that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates again in October.
After the 29,000-job number, those odds fell sharply.
A slowing labor market makes the Fed more cautious about additional tightening.
Higher interest rates can further weaken:
Hiring
Construction
Housing
and
Business investment.
The Fed now has to balance:
persistent inflation
against
slower employment growth.
THE BIGGER STORY: AMERICA’S JOB MARKET IS CHANGING WHO BENEFITS FROM GROWTH
The most important part of this story is not simply that women now hold more payroll jobs than men.
It is why.
America’s job market is being reshaped by:
An aging population
Health-care demand
Declining traditional manufacturing employment
Automation
AI investment
Higher educational attainment among women
and
A shift from goods-producing industries toward services.
Those changes do not affect everyone equally.
Women are increasingly concentrated in some of the economy’s fastest-growing sectors.
Men remain heavily represented in industries that are either cyclical, technologically disrupted or growing more slowly.
There are countertrends.
Data-center construction is creating skilled-trade jobs.
Manufacturing has started adding workers again.
AI infrastructure could support thousands of new blue-collar positions.
But the eight-month streak is telling economists something important.
The U.S. labor market is no longer structured the way it was when male-dominated manufacturing and construction generated much of the country’s middle-class employment.
Today, health care and services are carrying much more of the burden.
And unless more men move into the sectors where America is creating jobs—or new industrial investment produces far more employment—the gender gap could remain.
Women now outnumber men on U.S. payrolls for the longest stretch since 2010 — but the bigger story is that the economy itself is increasingly creating jobs in places where women are already positioned to benefit.
