Economic news, such as unemployment rates, labor participation, job growth and economic growth often provide conflicting stories. All this make determining how the economy is doing difficult. In the area of job growth, a recent study has been released that appears to report good news. The report comes from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, and begins with this:
“Good jobs for college graduates are leading the recovery. After years of slow growth, jobs are back in large numbers. The national unemployment rate is now 5.3 percent, down from the peak of 10 percent in October 2009. The economy added 250,000 jobs per month in 2014, the best year in job growth since the beginning of the millennium. The job growth fell off a bit in 2015, but has continued its deliberate advance, adding on average more than 200,000 jobs per month. The economic recovery still has a long way to go. After all, this has been the worst recession since the Great Depression, and an unusually weak recovery. Yet, the American job machine is producing jobs again, especially for college graduates. But are these good jobs? Many media accounts suggest the nation is flooded with baristas who were trained to create business plans and Uber drivers who can solve differential equations. Certainly such overqualified workers exist, as they would in any economy, but we find they are the exception, not the norm. The surge in hiring is not concentrated in dead-end McJobs. If anything, the surge is concentrated at the other end of the scale: in good, high-paying jobs that provide benefits.”
There are 6 general conclusions reported:
- Good jobs have grown the most in the recovery. Of the 6.6 million jobs added during the recovery, 2.9 million were good jobs compared to 1.8 million low-wage jobs and 1.9 million middle-wage jobs
- Most of the good jobs are full-time and provide health insurance and retirement plans. Eighty-six percent of workers in good jobs are full-time; 68 percent of good jobs provide health insurance; and 61 percent of good jobs include employer-sponsored retirement plans.
- Almost all good jobs have gone to college graduates. Out of the 2.9 million good jobs created since the recovery, 2.8 million have been filled by workers with at least a Bachelor’s degree.
- Jobs for managers; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workers; and healthcare professionals account for the majority of good jobs in the recovery.
- The middle-wage jobs have not fully recovered from the recession. In spite of the 1.9 million middle wage jobs added in the recovery, middle-wage occupations remain 900,000 jobs below their prerecession employment levels.
- Low-wage jobs have recovered all recession job losses (800,000 jobs above their pre-recession employment), but still are growing slower than good jobs.
Many other job reports seem to say that recent job gains are concentrated in low paying industries where people are accepting positions paying less than what they were receiving previously. Any notion of recovery means domination by low-wage and part time service jobs. Typically, recent college graduates are characterized as needing to take coffee shop and retail store jobs as all that is available. This study disagrees.
Rather, the report notes “a consensus among economic researchers … that the economy has seen a strong shift toward college-educated workers since the early 1980’s. The long-term shift in hiring, the increased economic value added, and the wage premium of college workers have persisted and strengthened for more than 30 years in periods of both recession and recovery.”
Interestingly, this study uses occupations to group jobs rather than industries. They claim that using industries lumps everyone from the CEO to janitor into a single group. Using occupations classifies a specific set of activities performed on the job. As you might expect, this leads to a significant difference in results reported.
To view the complete report, here is the website: https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/Good-Jobs_Full_Final.pdf