IT seems the tide has turned in the gender war - so much so that nearly three-quarters of Kirklees Council workers are women.

New figures show a roughly equal split in Britain's local authorities when it comes to women outnumbering men or vice-versa.

But in Kirklees, 74% of the 18,375 permanent and temporary posts are filled by women.

That means 13,780 jobs are taken up by women and 4,695 are held by men.

Some 5,294 of the posts occupied by women are full-time, compared with 3,977 full-time male posts.

The figures tie in with those collected nationally.

Wales has most female council staff.

London has the lowest proportion of women council employees of any region of Britain with 47%.

The research for the GMB union showed women outnumbered men in 99 out of 203 local authorities.

Although women may be dominating jobs in this sector, it seems the balance of types of jobs and pay received is still unequal.

Dawn Butler, the GMB union's national organiser, said: "Women have less money to spend because of the gender pay gap.

"Pay for women can be up to 25% lower than any male in the same job.

"Closing the gender pay gap is not just a matter of fairness it is also an economic imperative to enable areas to escape economic decline and stagnation."

The majority of women working for Kirklees Council are in areas such as education, social affairs, catering and cleaning.

This leaves only 39 % of the top 5% of posts filled by women, not including teaching.

On a national scale, the GMB union's research revealed the workforce was now split virtually evenly between men and women.

There were 12,862,000 male workers compared with 12,696,000 women, according to the report.