The middle part of the Buffalo Niagara job market is getting squeezed.
And while jobs that require midlevel skills are disappearing, workers with high-level skills are in growing demand, and there are increasing opportunities for the region’s least-skilled workers.
It’s all part of the shifting nature of the economy – a change that was accelerated by the push for productivity and lower costs during the recession.
It’s also a trend that is contributing to a continuing polarization in the job market that is widening the gap between the best-trained workers and those at the bottom of the skills spectrum.
“The types of jobs in the region have changed,” said Jaison R. Abel, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Buffalo office.
“Job opportunities in the middle have continued to shrink,” he said. “Middle-skill jobs that were lost during the recession have not come back. Higher- and lower-skill jobs have grown during the recovery.”
Abel and fellow Fed economist Richard Deitz took a close look at the changes that have taken place within the Buffalo Niagara job market since the Great Recession hit in 2007.
Jobs that the Fed researchers consider to require midlevel skills have shrunk from about 54 percent of the Buffalo Niagara job market before the recession began to about 50 percent today.
In contrast, high-skill jobs have been growing uninterrupted, even during the recession. Those upper-level jobs now make up a little more than 20 percent of our local employment market, up from just under 18 percent in 2007, as demand continues to rise for people with high-level business skills, computer training, engineering and health care expertise.
The low-end – mostly jobs that pay less than $25,000 a year – is expanding, too, from 28.1 percent of all local jobs in 2007 to 29.5 percent in 2013, fueled by growth in the food preparation and personal care fields, the researchers found.
This isn’t just a local trend. It’s happening across the country, where the share of jobs requiring midlevel skills has shrunk to 49 percent from 52 percent in 2007, the Fed study found.
With technology advancements and the tight economy displacing thousands of local midskill workers – from teachers and office administrators to factory and construction workers – the middle class is under increasing pressure.
And the pressure isn’t letting up now that the economy is expanding and local companies are hiring again, albeit at a subdued pace. Those midlevel skill jobs took the hardest beating during the recession, with 5.4 percent of the region’s middle skill jobs vanishing, and they’ve kept disappearing even in a recovery now entering its fourth year. Since 2010, the region lost another 2.1 percent of its mid-skill jobs.
“There really has not been much of a bounce-back at all in the middle skill category,” Abel said. “Technology and globalization are partly driving this pattern.”
When a manufacturer cuts production jobs, that work often ends up going to cheaper markets overseas or being replaced by automation, Abel says. So even when the economy rebounds, those jobs aren’t coming back.
While the middle is being squeezed, there’s growth at both ends of the skill spectrum. Jobs that require the highest levels of skill – from engineers and computer programmers to doctors and financial analysts – actually increased during the recession, expanding by 7.3 percent, and have kept growing during the recovery, adding another 4.8 percent since 2010.
Low-skill jobs – such as food service workers, store clerks, health care aides and child care providers – endured mild losses of just 0.7 percent – during the recession but have been the fastest growing part of the local job market since the beginning of 2010, expanding by 5 percent during that time.
Abel said the shift is a sign that the job market is becoming more polarized. That’s nothing new. It’s been going on for decades. But recessions – and the inevitable push to cut costs and boost efficiency that comes with them – only serve to accelerate the changes.
It is also a reflection of the hard hit the construction industry took during the last recession, especially in home building. Local construction jobs are down more than 14 percent since 2010.
And it’s a sign of the tight budgets that governments are grappling with. That means fewer teaching jobs as enrollments drop; it means fewer government jobs as the state and local municipalities cut back.
That highlights the importance of workers continuing to upgrade their skills so they can adapt to the shift in the job market.
“One thing is clear: Workers will need more education, training and skills to take full advantage of the types of job opportunities being created,” said William C. Dudley, the New York Fed’s president. “Workers are increasingly facing higher skill requirements in order to land a good job.”
email: drobinson@buffnews.com
And while jobs that require midlevel skills are disappearing, workers with high-level skills are in growing demand, and there are increasing opportunities for the region’s least-skilled workers.
It’s all part of the shifting nature of the economy – a change that was accelerated by the push for productivity and lower costs during the recession.
It’s also a trend that is contributing to a continuing polarization in the job market that is widening the gap between the best-trained workers and those at the bottom of the skills spectrum.
“The types of jobs in the region have changed,” said Jaison R. Abel, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Buffalo office.
“Job opportunities in the middle have continued to shrink,” he said. “Middle-skill jobs that were lost during the recession have not come back. Higher- and lower-skill jobs have grown during the recovery.”
Abel and fellow Fed economist Richard Deitz took a close look at the changes that have taken place within the Buffalo Niagara job market since the Great Recession hit in 2007.
Jobs that the Fed researchers consider to require midlevel skills have shrunk from about 54 percent of the Buffalo Niagara job market before the recession began to about 50 percent today.
In contrast, high-skill jobs have been growing uninterrupted, even during the recession. Those upper-level jobs now make up a little more than 20 percent of our local employment market, up from just under 18 percent in 2007, as demand continues to rise for people with high-level business skills, computer training, engineering and health care expertise.
The low-end – mostly jobs that pay less than $25,000 a year – is expanding, too, from 28.1 percent of all local jobs in 2007 to 29.5 percent in 2013, fueled by growth in the food preparation and personal care fields, the researchers found.
This isn’t just a local trend. It’s happening across the country, where the share of jobs requiring midlevel skills has shrunk to 49 percent from 52 percent in 2007, the Fed study found.
With technology advancements and the tight economy displacing thousands of local midskill workers – from teachers and office administrators to factory and construction workers – the middle class is under increasing pressure.
And the pressure isn’t letting up now that the economy is expanding and local companies are hiring again, albeit at a subdued pace. Those midlevel skill jobs took the hardest beating during the recession, with 5.4 percent of the region’s middle skill jobs vanishing, and they’ve kept disappearing even in a recovery now entering its fourth year. Since 2010, the region lost another 2.1 percent of its mid-skill jobs.
“There really has not been much of a bounce-back at all in the middle skill category,” Abel said. “Technology and globalization are partly driving this pattern.”
When a manufacturer cuts production jobs, that work often ends up going to cheaper markets overseas or being replaced by automation, Abel says. So even when the economy rebounds, those jobs aren’t coming back.
While the middle is being squeezed, there’s growth at both ends of the skill spectrum. Jobs that require the highest levels of skill – from engineers and computer programmers to doctors and financial analysts – actually increased during the recession, expanding by 7.3 percent, and have kept growing during the recovery, adding another 4.8 percent since 2010.
Low-skill jobs – such as food service workers, store clerks, health care aides and child care providers – endured mild losses of just 0.7 percent – during the recession but have been the fastest growing part of the local job market since the beginning of 2010, expanding by 5 percent during that time.
Abel said the shift is a sign that the job market is becoming more polarized. That’s nothing new. It’s been going on for decades. But recessions – and the inevitable push to cut costs and boost efficiency that comes with them – only serve to accelerate the changes.
It is also a reflection of the hard hit the construction industry took during the last recession, especially in home building. Local construction jobs are down more than 14 percent since 2010.
And it’s a sign of the tight budgets that governments are grappling with. That means fewer teaching jobs as enrollments drop; it means fewer government jobs as the state and local municipalities cut back.
That highlights the importance of workers continuing to upgrade their skills so they can adapt to the shift in the job market.
“One thing is clear: Workers will need more education, training and skills to take full advantage of the types of job opportunities being created,” said William C. Dudley, the New York Fed’s president. “Workers are increasingly facing higher skill requirements in order to land a good job.”
email: drobinson@buffnews.com