Women’s August job gains estimate requires a closer look at BLS surveys

Women August job gains became a focus after the US added 162,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in August, while the unemployment rate held at 4.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. CNBC calculated that women accounted for 158,000 of the increase and men for 4,000, implying that women represented about 98% of the month’s net employment gain.

That figure is an analysis of different BLS measures, rather than an official gender allocation of the 162,000 payroll jobs. It is therefore a useful indication of the month’s divergent reported employment movements by gender, but it does not establish that women took 98% of newly created payroll positions.

Why does the women’s August job gains calculation differ from payroll data?

The distinction lies in the two surveys behind the monthly report. The BLS establishment survey produces the headline nonfarm payroll total and tracks employment, hours and earnings by industry. Its separate household survey measures employment status and unemployment for demographic groups, including women and men. CNBC’s calculation compares the household-survey changes by gender with the establishment-survey payroll increase.

Those measures can move differently, so the 158,000 and 4,000 figures should not be read as a headcount of who filled the month’s payroll jobs. The official report put August unemployment at 3.5% for adult women and 4.0% for adult men, with both rates little changed from July.

Which sectors added jobs in August?

The industry figures offer context for, but do not prove, a sector-mix explanation. Food services and drinking places added 59,000 jobs, local-government education added 42,000, manufacturing added 16,000 and health care added 13,000, BLS reported. Information employment fell by 23,000.

CNBC reported that the prominence of health care and education-related hiring may help explain the reported gender split. More than four in five workers in health care and social assistance are women, according to the BLS figures cited by CNBC, while women hold close to three-quarters of education, training and library occupations. Those occupational measures do not map exactly to all of the August industry categories, and the available data do not show gender-specific job gains within each sector.

CNBC also reported a longer-running divergence in its analysis: seasonally adjusted employment among women was more than 870,000 higher than a year earlier, while male employment was down by nearly 1.5mn. Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at Indeed Hiring Lab, told CNBC that the difference between the number of jobs held by women and men had reached an unprecedented level. Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, cautioned in a social-media post cited by CNBC that monthly gender data can be volatile.

The August release also underscored the importance of revisions. BLS raised June payroll growth from 20,000 to 31,000 and changed July from an initially reported 23,000 decline to a 21,000 increase, a combined upward revision of 55,000. The August payroll result was above the preceding 12-month average monthly gain of 31,000, while average hourly earnings rose 0.3% during the month and 3.1% from a year earlier.

BLS’s August employment report provides the underlying industry and household-survey measures.

This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.