California’s economy has recovered, and the state has regained the number of jobs it lost during the Great Recession.
But what kind of jobs are coming back? A pair of articles look at the ways in which California’s economy is transforming, and the implications in the ongoing discussion over growing income inequality.
The Los Angeles Times reports , “The state has been among the slowest to recover jobs in an industry long viewed as a bastion of middle-class opportunity.
“Since February 2010, U.S. manufacturing employment has increased at a rate of 6.7%, with some Midwestern and Southern states such as Indiana and South Carolina seeing gains of 15% or more. By contrast, California manufacturing has grown at about 1% over the same period.
“That could hurt California’s middle-class workforce: Manufacturing is the classic path to higher paying jobs for less-educated workers. On average, manufacturing workers make 8.4% higher wages each week than those in all other industries combined, according to a 2012 Brookings Institution study.”
The Sacramento-based Grizzly Bear Project took the additional step of mapping California job patterns over the last decade, and offers a stark illustration of how good-paying manufacturing jobs are being replaced by lower-paid service industry work.
You can read the entire post and see the charts here.