More women than ever in the prime of their careers are working. And soon women could outnumber men again in the workplace.
The U.S. economy added 209,000 new jobs in June, 80% of which of went to women, the government reported Friday.
The increase in female job-holders nudged the share of women in the labor force in their prime working years (25 to 54) to a record 77.8%.
If the trend continues, the number of women in the workplace could also overtake men for the first time since 2019, when they accounted for 50.1% of the labor force. Women bore the heaviest brunt of job losses during the pandemic.
In June, women made up 49.9% of the labor force, up slightly from the prior month.
“The growth path of jobs that we should expect to see over the next four to six months, I think, will continue to favor jobs for women,” said Betsey Stevenson, labor economist at the University of Michigan.
Adult women already have a lower unemployment rate than adult men: 3.1% vs 3.4%. The overall U.S. jobless rate is 3.6%.
The benefits of recent hiring trends also appear to favor women that typically have not fared as well during economic upturns. The unemployment rate for African American women, for example, fell to a record low of 4.2% in March.
Stevenson said “when we looked at who was hurt the most, it was women, and it was particularly women of color. And if we look at who’s had the strongest recovery, it’s been women, particularly women of color.”
Industries that mostly hire women experienced the greatest job growth last month, especially private education and healthcare.
Women make up 77% of the private education and healthcare labor force, which added 73,000 jobs in June. They also comprise 58.5% of jobs in government, whose employment rose by 60,000 last month.
Concerns about labor shortages in private education and healthcare have been present since the pandemic hit those industries particularly hard.
Though recovery in labor supply for education and healthcare has been “slow,” the industries have “fully recovered” to 2019 levels, Stevenson said.
“I think we’re going to continue to see strong job growth in private education and health services,” she added.
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