Women have outnumbered men in the U.S. workforce for eight consecutive months as of September, marking the longest such stretch in over 15 years.
That is the finding of an analysis of government data by Indeed, the job search platform, which tracked the sustained gender gap through the latest reporting period.
“Back then, the gap emerged because men were losing jobs,” said Cory Stahle, senior economist at Indeed. “This time, it’s because women are gaining them.”
The trend arrived alongside a weaker-than-expected September jobs report, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting net payroll growth of just 29,000 jobs for the month.
That figure fell well short of the economists consensus forecast, which had projected an increase of 84,000 jobs across the U.S. economy.
The seasonally adjusted number of employed men in the U.S. was lower by approximately 1.2 million in September compared with the same month a year earlier.
Women’s employment, by contrast, rose by more than 650,000 over the same twelve-month period, highlighting a stark divergence in labor market outcomes by gender.
Men represented slightly over half of net job growth in September, according to a CNBC analysis of BLS data, an improvement from August when men accounted for just 2% of payroll growth.
The broader underperformance of men in the labor market can be partially explained by which industries have been driving overall employment growth in recent months.
Health care, which has been a key engine of U.S. job creation for several years, accounted for more than half of all payroll expansion in September, and women make up nearly four out of every five workers in that sector.
However, the BLS noted that health care hiring slowed in September relative to its average pace over the prior year, meaning women may not have received as large a boost from the sector as in previous months.
Monthly payroll contraction in female-centric industries such as government also diluted overall employment gains for women during the month, Stahle noted.
The data points to a labour market in which industry composition, rather than broad economic decline, is reshaping the gender balance of employment across the United States.