Economists see further stratification of U.S. labor market

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Whenever companies start hiring freely again, job-seekers with specialized skills and education will have plenty of good opportunities. Others will face a choice: Take a job with low pay — or none at all.

Job creation likely will remain weak for months or even years. But once employers do step up hiring, some economists expect job openings to fall mainly into two categories of roughly equal numbers:

• Professional fields with higher pay. Think lawyers, research scientists and software engineers.

• Lower-skill and lower-paying jobs, such as home health-care aides and store clerks.

Those in between? Their outlook is bleaker. Economists foresee fewer moderately paid factory supervisors, postal workers and office administrators.

...

Pay for future service-sector jobs will tend to vary from very high to very low. At the same time, the number of middle-income service-sector jobs will shrink, according to government projections. Any job that can be automated or outsourced overseas is likely to continue to decline.

The service sector's growth also could magnify the nation's income inequality, with more people either affluent or financially squeezed. The nation isn't educating enough people for the higher-skilled service-sector jobs of the future, economists warn.

...

"Our occupational structure is really becoming bifurcated," said Richard Florida, a professor at the University of Toronto. "We're becoming more of a divided nation by the work we do."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2012821283_work06.html

[JohnSmith2007 353]

In other words this "recovery", if you can call it that, will hose the middle class even more?

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In other words this "recovery", if you can call it that, will hose the middle class even more?

Computer programmers and research scientists and stat-geeks are middle class.

As are most lawyers, especially those unfortunate bottom-of-their-class schmucks who become immigration lawyers

Edited September 7, 2010 by Legacy member

[JohnSmith2007 353]

Computer programmers and research scientists and stat-geeks are middle class.

The story calls them "higher paid" workers.

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The story calls them "higher paid" workers.

That's part of what I found so interesting about this article.