Majority of new jobs pay lower wages, study finds | HoumaToday.com

Majority of new jobs pay lower wages, study finds | HoumaToday.com

"The report looked at 366 occupations tracked by the Labor Department, and clumped them into three equal groups by wage, with each representing a third of U.S. employment in 2008. The middle-third — occupations in fields like construction, manufacturing and information with median hourly wages of $13.84 to $21.13 — accounted for 60 percent of job losses from the beginning of 2008 to early 2010. The job market has turned around since then, but those fields have represented only 22 percent of total job growth.
Higher-wage occupations — those with a median wage of $21.14 to $54.55 — represented 19 percent of job losses when employment was falling, and 20 percent of job gains when employment began growing again.
Lower-wage occupations, with median hourly wages of $7.69 to $13.83, accounted for 21 percent of job losses during the retraction. Since employment started expanding, they have accounted for 58 percent of all job growth."