Nearly 348,000 of the 369,000 jobs created since Trump’s second term began went to women, with only 21,000 going to men.
The jobs have gone almost exclusively to women, with the lopsidedness driven by huge growth in health care, where women hold nearly 80% of jobs and where healthcare alone added 390,000 jobs over the past 12 months, more than in the economy overall.
The most recent figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show an increase of 473,000 in total nonfarm employment between January and December 2025 since Trump took office.
The clearest explanation lies in which parts of the economy are hiring—healthcare and social assistance, a sector that is nearly four-fifths female, added 1.8 million jobs between July 2023 and July 2025, accounting for more than half of all U.S. job growth over that period.
One economist noted that to help men find work, “make girly jobs appeal to manly men.”
Manufacturing, the sector Trump repeatedly promised to revive, has stalled.
When manufacturers added 15,000 jobs in March, the White House called it proof that “the best days for American workers, manufacturers, and families are still ahead,” despite the fact that the sector is still down 82,000 jobs from when Trump took office.
The sectors that have traditionally employed men have moved the other way, with manufacturing, technology, financial activities and media stagnant or shrinking, squeezed by automation, offshoring and the early effects of artificial intelligence on white-collar work.
The pipeline is female, the growth sectors are female, and the jobs most protected from AI displacement—caregiving, healthcare, in-person services—are female, while the jobs most exposed to AI are disproportionately held by men.
A progressive advocacy group stated: “Today’s numbers show that the economy spent 2025 treading water while costs surged and families fell further behind. Job growth was dramatically weaker than advertised and concentrated nearly entirely in healthcare, leaving the rest of the labor market to stall.”
Women experienced net declines in their labor force size in at least six months of 2025 and by the end of the year there were just 184,000 more women in the labor force compared to January, while there were 572,000 more men in the labor force over the same time period.
Overall, however, women are taking the jobs available.
Women held more US payroll jobs than men in early 2026 as male labour-force participation neared a record low and healthcare growth reshaped the American workforce.
A former regional economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond said this time is structurally different: “It definitely doesn’t, to me, seem like the change has been driven by a recessionary period, which is what typically drives it. This seems to be more of a long-term decline that’s led to more of a permanent shift going forward, or at least semi-permanent.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s administration has simultaneously dismantled federal diversity programs, and
a sweeping rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs has left Black women disproportionately affected, with the administration’s broad executive actions to dismantle DEI programs upending the careers of many long-serving civil servants despite their jobs having no direct connection to diversity initiatives.
Ronicsa Chambers, a former finance officer at the Federal Aviation Administration and recipient of the FAA’s Air Traffic Manager of the Year award in 2022, was let go despite her current role not involving DEI functions, and she and her team—comprised of five Black women and one disabled white man—were told they would be reassigned, but “We’re the only ones still on administrative leave.”
Another Black women, Sherrell Pyatt, offered her perspective publicly.
“My team was almost exclusively African Americans, and I think it’s just because of the experience of Black people in this country. We seem to be more likely to go into those types of roles — one, because we have experience, and two, because of the passion to make a difference,” Pyatt said, before noting that in March the Trump administration fired nearly all 150 employees in her office at the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, including her.
“I think it was an easy target to get rid of people of color and people who fight for people of color,” Pyatt added. “It’s absolutely a way to attack people of color, people who are differently abled, people who don’t agree with what this administration is.”
“We are still just in utter shock that the public service we took an oath to complete … has fallen apart,” said Crowner. “We never imagined that this would be something that would happen to us. Many of those being forced out, like Crowner, are Black women who spent decades building a career of government service, only to see those careers shattered in a sudden purge.”
Trump’s new student-loan rules reclassify advanced degrees held by nurses, educators, speech-language pathologists, social workers, physician assistants, and other predominantly female professionals as something less than “professional,” pushing everyone else including workers in fields that require master’s degrees into a lower tier with sharply reduced loan access and the elimination of Grad PLUS loans, creating an immediate and punishing barrier for nurses, teachers, therapists, and social workers—jobs overwhelmingly filled by women, especially women of color.
Nursing is 89 percent women overall and up to 99 percent women in its advanced ranks, and stripping the profession of its loan access is not budget tightening—it is economic punishment.
Looking only at the private sector, 902,000 jobs were added during Trump’s term through June 2026.