One suspects that what emerges from this piece in The Age ( reproduced from The New York Times ) - the shift in employment in the USA - mirrors the situation elsewhere.
"The deep recession wiped out primarily high-wage and middle-wage jobs. Yet the strongest employment growth during the sluggish American recovery has been in low-wage work, at places like strip malls and fast-food restaurants.
In essence, the poor economy has replaced good jobs with bad ones. That is the conclusion of a new report from the National Employment Law Project, a research and advocacy group, analysing employment trends four years into the recovery.
"Fast food is driving the bulk of the job growth at the low end — the job gains there are absolutely phenomenal," said Michael Evangelist, the report's author. "If this is the reality — if these jobs are here to stay and are going to be making up a considerable part of the economy — the question is, how do we make them better?"
The report shows that total employment has finally surpassed its pre-recession level. "The good news is we're back to zero," Mr. Evangelist said.
But job losses and gains have been skewed. Higher-wage industries — like accounting and legal work — shed 3.6 million positions during the recession and have added only 2.6 million positions during the recovery. But lower-wage industries lost two million jobs, then added 3.8 million.
With 10.5 million Americans still looking for work — the unemployment rate is 6.7 percent — employers feel no pressure to raise wages for those who are working. As a result, the average household's take-home pay has declined through the recession and the recovery to $US51,017 in 2012 from $US55,627 in 2007, after adjusting for inflation.
With joblessness high and job gains concentrated in low-wage industries, hundreds of thousands of Americans have accepted positions that pay less than they used to make, in some cases, sliding out of the middle class and into the ranks of the working poor."
See also "The Big Tip that America’s Servers Never See" on inequality.org
"The deep recession wiped out primarily high-wage and middle-wage jobs. Yet the strongest employment growth during the sluggish American recovery has been in low-wage work, at places like strip malls and fast-food restaurants.
In essence, the poor economy has replaced good jobs with bad ones. That is the conclusion of a new report from the National Employment Law Project, a research and advocacy group, analysing employment trends four years into the recovery.
"Fast food is driving the bulk of the job growth at the low end — the job gains there are absolutely phenomenal," said Michael Evangelist, the report's author. "If this is the reality — if these jobs are here to stay and are going to be making up a considerable part of the economy — the question is, how do we make them better?"
The report shows that total employment has finally surpassed its pre-recession level. "The good news is we're back to zero," Mr. Evangelist said.
But job losses and gains have been skewed. Higher-wage industries — like accounting and legal work — shed 3.6 million positions during the recession and have added only 2.6 million positions during the recovery. But lower-wage industries lost two million jobs, then added 3.8 million.
With 10.5 million Americans still looking for work — the unemployment rate is 6.7 percent — employers feel no pressure to raise wages for those who are working. As a result, the average household's take-home pay has declined through the recession and the recovery to $US51,017 in 2012 from $US55,627 in 2007, after adjusting for inflation.
With joblessness high and job gains concentrated in low-wage industries, hundreds of thousands of Americans have accepted positions that pay less than they used to make, in some cases, sliding out of the middle class and into the ranks of the working poor."
See also "The Big Tip that America’s Servers Never See" on inequality.org
Comments