[NYT] It's Not Just the Jobs Lost, but the Pay in the New Ones

[NV1962]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/09/business/09jobs.html

It's Not Just the Jobs Lost, but the Pay in the New Ones

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: August 9, 2004

<...> For months, Democrats have said that the long-delayed employment recovery was concentrated in low-wage jobs that paid far less than those that were lost. White House officials replied that the available data failed to settle the matter one way or the other.

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In contrast to previous recoveries, when companies rehired a large proportion of laid-off workers, manufacturers have added only 91,000 jobs this year, having eliminated more than two million jobs in the previous three years.

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The ragged pattern of the recovery has given rise to the political debate, with Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, saying that new jobs pay, on average, $9,000 a year less than the jobs that were lost.

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But a growing number of analysts say the evidence increasingly suggests that the current recovery has indeed been tilted toward lower-paying jobs. Industries ranked in the bottom fifth for wages and salaries have added 477,000 jobs since January, while industries in the top fifth for wages had no increase at all, according to an analysis of Labor Department payroll data by Economy.com, an economic research firm.

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Adjusted for inflation, average hourly wages have fallen slightly in the last year. And for many who have lost their jobs as a result of plant closings and layoffs, the impact has been more acute: a recent survey of displaced workers by the Labor Department found that 57 percent of those who had found work were earning less than they did in their old jobs. As of December, when the survey was taken, 4 of 10 displaced factory workers had yet to start a new job.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/09/business/09jobs.html