Record 56,253,000 Women Out of Labor Force

The number of women out of the U.S. labor force reached another record high in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The BLS reported Friday that 56,253,000 women, ages 16 and older, were not participating in the workforce in August. That’s up 44,000 from July, when 56,209,000 women were neither employed nor had made a specific effort to find work in the four weeks prior.

The trend for women is similar to the national figures. The month of August saw a record number of men and women out of the labor force, exceeding 94 million for the first time.

Although the number of women out of work grew, the expanding population also helped increase the number of women with jobs.

In August, 73,593,000 women were in the labor force. That’s up 65,000 over the month of July. The labor force participation rate for women remained at a low 56.7 percent.

Of those women in the workforce, 69,825,000 had a job and 3,768,000 were unemployed. The unemployment rate for women was 5.1 percent.

Nationally, the BLS reported that the economy added 173,000 jobs in August and the unemployment rate was 5.1 percent, lower than July’s 5.3 percent.