Labor & Employment Law

Report: New U.S. Jobs Are Low-Wage

By James Parks

More than a million private-sector jobs were added to the U.S. economy during the past 12 months, but they were mainly middle and lower-wage jobs, a new report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP) finds.

The heavy growth in industries like temporary employment services, restaurants and retail and in nursing and residential care facilities, which pay median wages below $13 an hour, suggests that not only are there  fewer job opportunities overall now than before the recession, there are fewer well-paying jobs.

While lower-wage industries constituted 23 percent of job loss, they accounted for 49 percent of recent growth. Higher-wage jobs that pay $19 an hour or more made up 40 percent of the job loss, but only 14 percent of job growth.  

 ?The million-plus jobs added over the last 12 months have been distinctly skewed toward mid- and especially lower-wage industries,? said Annette Bernhardt, NELP?s policy co-director and author of the report.

This snapshot suggests that the job opportunities currently available to workers have deteriorated compared to what was available before the recession. If these trends continue, the slow recovery combined with imbalanced growth could make it much harder for workers to find family-supporting jobs and pose real obstacles to restoring consumer demand.

The nation lost nearly 9 million jobs during the Great Recession, and when you factor in population growth during that time, the economy still faces a deficit of 11 million jobs.

Click here for a copy of the report ?A Year of Unbalanced Growth: Industries, Wages, and the First 12 Months of Job Growth After the Great Recession.?

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 24, 2011 (boomark / email).