Here's an interesting article on something that's definitely related to this topic:
(It's a PDF file, so it was kinda hard [i.e., time-consuming] to copy and paste it and to get the formatting right, and I couldn't copy ANY of the tables and graphs...so I recommend that you follow the link to get the whole thing.)
The Low-Wage Recovery and Growing Inequality
Summary
This report updates NELP’s previous analyses of job loss and job growth trends during and after the Great Recession. We find that:
1 During the recession, employment losses occurred throughout the economy, but were concentrated in mid-wage occupations. By contrast, during the recovery, employment gains have been concentrated in lower-wage occupations, which grew 2.7 times as fast as mid-wage and higher-wage occupations. Specifically:
..........•
Lower-wage occupations were 21 percent of recession losses, but 58 percent of recovery growth.
..........•
Mid-wage occupations were 60 percent of recession losses, but only 22 percent of recovery growth.
..........•
Higher-wage occupations were 19 percent of recession job losses, and 20 percent of recovery growth.
2 The lower-wage occupations that grew the most during the recovery include retail salespersons, food preparation workers, laborers and freight workers, waiters and waitresses, personal and home care aides, and office clerks and customer representatives.
3 The unbalanced recession and recovery have meant that the long-term rise in inequality in the U.S. continues. The good jobs deficit is now deeper than it was at the start of the 21st century:
..........• Since the first quarter of 2001, employment has grown by 8.7 percent in lower-wage occupations and
............ by 6.6 percent in higher-wage occupations.
..........• By contrast, employment in mid-wage occupations has fallen by 7.3.
4 Industry dynamics are playing an important role in shaping the unbalanced recovery. We find that three low-wage industries (food services, retail, and employment services) added 1.7 million jobs over the past two years, fully 43 percent of net employment growth. At the same time, better-paying industries (like construction; manufacturing; finance, insurance and real estate; and information) did not grow, or did not grow enough to make up for recession losses. Other better-paying industries (like professional and technical services) saw solid growth, but not in their mid-wage occupations. And steep cuts in state and local government have hit mid- and higher-wage occupations the hardest.
In short, America’s good jobs deficit continues. Policymakers have understandably been focused on the urgent goal of getting U.S. employment back to where it was before the recession (we are still missing nearly 10 million jobs), but our findings underscore that job quality is rapidly emerging as a second front in the struggling recovery.
After two years of growth, the good jobs deficit continues
In what follows, we analyze data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), the main government survey providing information on wages and occupations for U.S. workers (see Appendix for details on data and methods).
Specifically, we examine employment trends in 366 detailed occupations. We formed three equal groups, each representing a third of U.S. employment in 2008:
lower-wage occupations with median hourly wages from $7.69 to $13.83;
mid-wage occupations with median hourly wages from $13.84 to $21.13; and
higher-wage occupations with median hourly wages from $21.14 to $54.55 (all in 2012 dollars).
We then tracked net employment changes in these three groups over time, as shown in Figure 1. The red bars show net losses in employment during the recession (2008 Q1 to 2010 Q1). The orange bars show net growth in employment during the recovery (2010 Q1 to 2012 Q1). The pattern is striking.
During the Great Recession, employment losses occurred across the board, but were concentrated in mid-wage occupations. By contrast, in the recovery to date, employment growth has been concentrated in lower-wage occupations, which grew 2.7 times as fast as mid-wage and higher-wage occupations:
•
Lower-wage occupations constituted 21 percent of recession job losses, but fully 58 percent of recovery growth.
•
Mid-wage occupations constituted 60 percent of recession job losses, but only 22 percent of recovery growth.
•
Higher-wage occupations constituted 19 percent of recession job losses, and 20 percent of recovery growth.
Figure 2 shows the lower-wage occupations that grew the most during the recovery, and their median hourly wages. (Of these, six are also among the top ten occupations projected to add the most jobs by 2020). In terms of jobs that have struggled to come back, Table 1 lists the mid-wage occupations that currently have the biggest job deficit relative to pre-recession employment levels.
The long-term rise in inequality continues
The U.S. labor market was already in trouble before the Great Recession, the result of 30 years of growing wage inequality and shrinking numbers of good jobs (see the recent CEPR report). But the twin trends described here – mid-wage occupations experiencing the biggest losses during the recession, and lower-wage occupations growing the most during the recovery – have only exacerbated the growth in inequality.
In Figure 3, we illustrate the longer-term trend by analyzing employment growth in occupations since the start of the century. The logic of the analysis is similar to the one above. Beginning with the first quarter of 2001, we formed three equal groups of occupations, each representing a third of U.S. employment, and tracked net employment growth through the first quarter of 2012.3
The graph shows a steady rise in inequality from 2001 to 2008, with lower- and higher-wage occupations experiencing more growth than mid-wage occupations (which barely saw gains in employment). But the hollowing out of the middle became even more pronounced during the recession and continues to leave its mark on the recovery. Specifically:
• Since the first quarter of 2001, employment has grown by 8.7 percent in lower-wage occupations and by 6.6 percent
..in higher-wage occupations.
• By contrast, employment in mid-wage occupations has declined by 7.3 percent since the first quarter of 2001.
In addition, the wages paid by these occupations has changed. Between the first quarters of 2001 and 2012, median real wages for lower-wage and mid-wage occupations declined (by 2.1 and 0.2 percent, respectively), but increased for higher-wage occupations (by 4.1 percent).
Which industries are driving the unbalanced recovery?
Understanding differences in occupational growth requires understanding trends at the industry level. As shown in Figure 4, different sectors of the U.S. economy have seen different patterns of job loss and job growth, both during and after the Great Recession (in this section, we analyze BLS Current Employment Statistics data). In addition, the mix of occupations has also changed in some industries. Our analysis of both of these dynamics suggests the following four drivers of the unbalanced recovery to date:
#1: Large low-wage industries are dominating growth during the recovery
Three low-wage industries have added 1.7 million jobs in the recovery and constitute 43 percent of total net growth: food services, retail, and administrative, support and waste management services (largely employment services, i.e., temp jobs). The majority of growth within these industries (76 percent) occurred in their lower-wage occupations.
#2: Key mid-wage and high-wage industries are either not growing, or not growing enough to make up for recession losses
Steep losses in construction, FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate), and manufacturing during the recession created a large deficit in mid-wage occupations. These industries are not showing enough growth, and especially in the case of construction, are unlikely to get back to pre-recession levels any time soon. There has also been a long-term and continuing decline in the information sector, contributing to the deficit of higher-wage jobs. Finally, deep cuts in state and local government during the recovery (a loss of 485,000 jobs since February 2010) occurred largely in mid- and higher-wage jobs.
#3: Some mid- and high-wage industries are growing, but that growth has been unbalanced
In a number of better-paying industries, recovery growth has not been evenly distributed and has contributed to the good jobs deficit. In wholesale trade, recession losses were concentrated in mid-wage occupations, but growth has been concentrated in lower-wage occupations. In educational services and social assistance, recent growth has been strongly polarized between lower- and higher-wage occupations. And the recovery in professional and technical services has been concentrated in higher-wage occupations, leaving a significant mid-wage gap in this sector.
#4: The bright spots: several mid- and high-wage industries have seen balanced growth
Even though it lost more than a million and a half jobs during the recession, durable manufacturing has been one of the key drivers of the U.S. recovery, and importantly, growth in this sector has been concentrated in mid-wage occupations; similarly for transportation and warehousing. As important, the health care sector has seen solid employment growth across the occupational distribution. Without these industries, the recovery would have been even more unbalanced and skewed toward lower-wage occupations.
