92% of New US Jobs Since 2025 Went to Women. Tech Is Bleeding.

Health care is hiring. The federal government has shed 2.7 million workers. And 92% of every job added since January 2025 has gone to a woman.

Those three numbers come from official US labour-market data released in early October 2026. They define the sharpest segmentation of American payrolls in years. Adam Tooze's Chartbook newsletter aggregated them on 2 October from posts by Justin Wolfers, Joey Politano and Heather Long.

What does the latest jobs release show?

Total nonfarm employment grew by 776,000 positions between January 2025 and September 2026. The split by gender is extreme.

• Women accounted for 711,000 of those jobs — 92% of the total
• Men added 65,000 positions — 8%
• Men's payrolls fell by 96,000 in February 2026, then stagnated

Justin Wolfers posted on X: "I'm not sure who saw this coming, but so far nearly all the jobs created during the second Trump administration have gone to women."

The pattern mirrors the sector mix. Health care and education — female-majority workforces — carried the expansion. Construction, manufacturing and federal payrolls — male-majority — absorbed most of the cuts.

For individual workers, the practical read is sharper demand for nurses, medical assistants, paraprofessionals and K-12 teachers, alongside tighter competition for male-dominated trades and federal-adjacent roles.

Where are the job losses concentrated?

Two sectors stand out.

The federal government recorded the largest contraction. Tooze cited a chart showing the sector has shed 2.7 million jobs since the cuts began — a workforce reduction unmatched in previous US downturns.

Technology is bleeding almost as visibly. Joey Politano wrote on X that "the US tech sector continues bleeding jobs in official data released today." Tech employment fell 17,000 in the latest month and stands 69,000 lower than a year ago. Politano described the run-rate as "nearly as bad as the worst of the 2024 tech-cession, and much worse than the 2022 boom or even pre-2020 norms."

For an individual tech worker, that translates into:

• Application volumes in software and IT services running near 2024-cycle highs
• Specialised domain expertise counting more than during the 2022 boom
• Offer premiums reverting toward, not above, pre-2020 norms

What do real wage gains look like now?

Nominal wage growth fell to 3% year-on-year in September 2026, the lowest reading in five years. Inflation is running at roughly 3.4%.

Heather Long posted on X: "The financial pain is real... Inflation has eaten up all wage gains for the average worker since April. Many people are having to make hard choices about what to buy and what to cut."

For the typical worker, real take-home pay has drifted below the April 2026 baseline. A raise below 3.4% is now a real-terms cut. Benefits, particularly employer-sponsored health coverage, carry more weight than headline salary in any job move.

What should workers watch next?

The October jobs release, due before month-end, will show whether health care's outsized contribution can carry total payrolls higher — or whether the segmentation that defined 2025-26 finally cracks the headline number.