Who runs the labor market? Women accounted for 98% of U.S. job gains in August

Who runs the world—or the U.S. labor market—in August? Girls.

Women accounted for almost every job added to the U.S. economy in August, an extraordinary statistic within a jobs report full of surprises.

The economy added 162,000 jobs last month, nearly triple most economists’ projections of around 55,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of those gains, women accounted for 158,000 of them, roughly 98% of the net increase in payroll employment.

Men, by comparison, gained only about 4,000 jobs.

Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, cautioned against reading too much into the gender split of one month, calling it “noisy.”

“I think there’s been way too much focus on the month to month—is it men gaining jobs or women?” Long told Fortune. “That moves around a lot.”

Nevertheless, the lopsided month is another data point for a broad transformation in the American workforce: Earlier this year, women overtook men in total payroll employment for the third time in history. Unlike the other two times—the Great Recession and just before the pandemic—the latest shift looks less crisis-driven and more structural: Female-heavy industries such as health care and hospitality continue to add workers even as male-heavy sectors like manufacturing stagnate.

August really emphasized this divergence. Women gained around 68,000 jobs in leisure and hospitality, even as the whole sector added only 62,000, meaning men lost 6,000 jobs in the sector. Several other service industries showed the same pattern, where women accounted for more than 100% of net job growth since male employment fell.

“One of the main drivers of the post-pandemic labor force has once again been health care, where women are highly represented,” said Long. Women also earn more college degrees than men, she added, leaving them relatively well positioned to capture growth in some professional industries.

Still, Long said, much of the dramatic August swing had a simple explanation: teachers and servers.

“The reason that women were down in July and up in August is almost entirely driven by education hiring—the teacher effect,” she said, along with a rebound in hospitality, where women make up a large share of workers. “It’s not like something dramatically changed for women.”

Indeed, food service and drinking places added 59,000 jobs, while local government education added another startling 42,000—together making up 62% of all the jobs created in August. Education was seen as a reversal of a seasonal summer decline, and BLS said employment there has shown very little net change since January 2025.

June and July were revised up by a combined 55,000 jobs.

“A monster jobs report for August reminds us that this labor statistic has become highly volatile,” said Bradford Smith, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors.

The unemployment rate held at 4.1%, while labor force participation ticked higher. Wage growth stagnated, rising only 0.3% in August and just 3.1% from a year earlier, the slowest annual pace in years.

For markets, good news becomes bad news as traders immediately began pricing in a higher chance of a rate hike. September hike odds rose to 52.6% from 49.4% Thursday, according to CME’s FedWatch tool, while the two-year yield rose 7.6 bps to 4.41% and the 10-year to 4.792%. Stock futures were mixed. The concern is that a strong labor market gives the Fed more reason to nip the bud of inflation above 2%, and raise rates in September.

“An upside surprise in payrolls will likely ramp up concerns about a rate hike,” Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said, though she added that the decision ultimately rests on next week’s inflation report. If inflation comes in cooler than expected next week, Zentner said, the Fed may be comfortable looking through the stronger jobs number and sitting at the current Fed funds rate. If it doesn’t, August’s surprising labor market gave policymakers one more reason to hike.

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