Women’s Unemployment Drove Last Month’s Rise in US Jobless Rate

A jump in unemployment among women drove the overall increase in the October jobless rate in the US, according to data released Friday by the Department of Labor.

The number of women looking for a job rose by 212,000 to 2.8 million, from 2.6 million in September, the biggest increase since December. That helped push the unemployment rate for women to 3.7%, from 3.4% the previous month.

Overall the total number of women employed remains near an all-time high, and gender data can be bumpy month-over-month. Still, measures of female employment and labor-force participation as a percentage of their overall ...