Most of the industry’s job losses came from general merchandise stores, which shed 161,000 female employees while adding nearly 88,000 male workers from October 2016 to October 2017, the most recent BLS data available. Meanwhile car dealers, home improvement stores and furniture retailers all saw job gains in that period, with higher gains among men. Hartmann said you’re more likely to see men working in these stores than women, and same goes for those departments within larger general merchandise stores like Walmart.