Middle-Class Jobs Disappearing As Workforce Shifts To High-Skill, Low-Skill: Study

[Kadie]

Middle-Class Jobs Disappearing As Workforce Shifts To High-Skill, Low-Skill: Study
The Huffington Post Alexander Eichler
First Posted: 11/21/11 12:27 PM ET Updated: 11/21/11 12:27 PM ET

America is increasingly becoming a place of high- and low-skill jobs, with less room available for a middle class.

A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that over the past 30 years, the U.S. workforce has shifted toward high-paying jobs that require a great deal of education -- jobs in the legal, engineering or technology industries, for example -- and toward low-paying jobs that require little schooling, like food preparation, maintenance and personal care.

What haven't fared so well are the industries in the middle, like sales, teaching, construction, repair, entertainment, transportation and business -- the ones where a majority of Americans end up working.

In 1980, these middle-level jobs accounted for 75 percent of the workforce. By 2009, that number had fallen to 68 percent. In the same span of time, low- and high-skill jobs had each grown as a percentage of the workforce.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/middle-class-jobs_n_1105502.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

[JoeyT]

1. The construction, repair, etc

jobs are still there. They just don't pay much more than food prep now.