(Bloomberg) -- Women notched up strong employment gains in August as more found jobs or looked for work, helping to raise the overall US labor-force participation rate.
The number of women in jobs jumped by 386,000 -- the most since March 2021 -- to 77.4 million, Labor Department data released Friday showed. Female employment reached the highest level since February 2020.
The US economy added 315,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate rose to 3.7%, the first increase since January, as more people entered the labor force.
The labor-force participation rate for women aged 25 to 54 -- known as prime working age -- rose to 77.2% in August, the highest in 22 years.
For men, the prime-age participation rate increased 0.2 percentage point to 88.6%. The shift reduced the participation gap between the two groups to 11.4 percentage points, the narrowest on record.
The increase in the prime-age participation rate for women also helped to push the overall reading to 82.8%, the highest since February 2020.
Latina women saw strong gains last month, with the share of females over age 20 who were working -- known as the employment to population ratio -- rising to 58.3% from 57.7%. Meanwhile, the share for Black women dropped to 58.4% from 59% in July.
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