Middle-skill jobs vanish

[marmar]

Labor force polarized as middle-skill jobs disappear: report
By Ruth Mantell, MarketWatch


WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Middle-skills jobs have lost share in the employment pool in the last three decades, a trend of labor-market "polarization" reinforced by the recession, according to a report released Friday.

"Employment losses during the recent recession were far more severe in middle-skill white- and blue-collar jobs than in either high-skill, white-collar jobs or in low-skill service occupations," according to the report by economist David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was presented at a Washington symposium from Hamilton Project and the Center for American Progress about the future of American jobs.

The four middle-skill occupations -- sales, office and administrative workers, production workers and operators -- accounted for 57.3% employment in 1979. That portion fell to 48.6% in 2007, and declined to 45.7% in 2009, according to the report.

Male workers have been particularly hard hit, as their educational attainment has slowed and labor force participation declined, according to Autor.

"Perhaps most alarmingly, males as a group have adapted comparatively poorly to the changing labor market," Autor wrote. "For males without a four-year college degree, wages have stagnated or fallen over three decades. And as these males have moved out of middle-skill blue-collar jobs, they have generally moved downward in the occupational skill and earnings distribution." ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/labor-force-polarized-as-middle-skill-jobs-vanish-2010-04-30

[lunatica]

1. I fall into that group

I'm in administration in UC Berkeley. We do almost all our work on the computer now. Hiring, reimbursements, creating Purchase Orders, maintaining employee's time accruals, payroll, student affairs, accounting, everything. The middle person is being eliminated and entire administrative departments for the Research departments were laid off last year to consolidate the work centrally and now the work is being done by a handful of people. I was laid off but was re-hired by the centralized administrative department because everyone who was laid off had first dibs on applying for the fewer jobs being offered.

Yesterday I heard the Chancellor give a speech in which he said so much money had been saved by this that he wanted to make it happen for the entire campus.

UC Berkeley is rapidly becoming a Corporation. It's sad to watch, but that's reality.

[Quantess]

2. K & R

[laughingliberal]

3. K & R nt

[SoCalDem]

4. "...males as a group have adapted comparatively poorly..." wtf?

How DOES a man "adapt" to the fact that his BOSSES are the ones who choose to close-down/sell-out/out-source/down-size and in the process, eliminate HIS job.

A man in his 40-50's (usually the ages of men in this category) is UNLIKELY to be able to spend time RE-TRAINING..and retraining for WHAT?

That man will have a mortgage, some car payments, a need for health insurance for his family.. He probably has a wife, some teenaged kids who may just want to go to college, or who are having a hard time finding jobs of their own.

Even if he does re-train, it will likely be for a job that has less (if any) security , benefits, opportunity, status and of course it will probably be at a pay cut of 30-40%..at the very time all the "experts" say he should be ADDING to his asset list , in anticipation of retirement.

It's all just a Machiavellian squeeze play..The ones at the top view people like Kleenex.. Buy them on sale, use them, and throw them away..

[Overseas]

5. K&R. I'm feeling it right now. //nt