The US added 162,000 jobs in August, nearly triple the roughly 55,000 most economists expected, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Women took 158,000 of them, about 98% of the net gain. Men gained around 4,000.
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, warned against reading much into one month’s split. “I think there’s been way too much focus on the month to month,” she told Fortune. “That moves around a lot.”
Teachers and servers
Long said the swing had a simple explanation. Women’s employment was down in July and up in August “almost entirely” because of education hiring, she said, plus a rebound in hospitality, where women make up a large share of workers. “It’s not like something dramatically changed for women.”
The detail backs her up. Food service and drinking places added 59,000 jobs and local government education added 42,000. Together that was 62% of all the jobs created in August. The BLS said the education gain reversed a seasonal summer dip, and employment in that sector has barely changed on net since January 2025.
Leisure and hospitality grew by 62,000 jobs overall. Women gained about 68,000 there, so men lost 6,000. In several other service industries women accounted for more than 100% of net job growth, because male employment fell.
Earlier this year, women overtook men in total payroll employment for the third time in history. The first two came in the Great Recession and just before the pandemic. Fortune described this one as looking less like a crisis and more like a structural shift, with female-heavy industries such as health care and hospitality still adding workers while male-heavy sectors like manufacturing stagnate. Long pointed to health care as a main driver of the post-pandemic labor force, and noted that women earn more college degrees than men.
Rate worries
The rest of the report was less cheerful for markets. Unemployment held at 4.1%. Wages rose 0.3% in August and 3.1% from a year earlier, the slowest annual pace in years. June and July were revised up by a combined 55,000 jobs.
Traders read the strength as a reason for the Federal Reserve to raise rates. CME’s FedWatch tool put the odds of a September hike at 52.6%, up from 49.4% the day before. The two-year yield rose 7.6 basis points to 4.41%, and the 10-year reached 4.792%.
“A monster jobs report for August reminds us that this labor statistic has become highly volatile,” said Bradford Smith, a portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors.
Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said the Fed’s decision rests mainly on next week’s inflation report. If inflation comes in cooler than expected, she said, policymakers may be comfortable looking past the strong payrolls and holding rates where they are.
