Who is seeing the greatest job gains after the Great Recession? And what kind of jobs are they getting? Labor economists at Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce (CEW) sought to answer these questions in a recently released report on job production since 2010.
The authors’ analysis revealed that 2.9 million of the 6.6 million jobs added during the Great Recession’s recovery are well-paid, with annual wages exceeding $53,000 per year. Who landed these good jobs? Mainly college graduates.
Overwhelmingly, 97 percent, or 2.8 million, of these jobs are going to college graduates with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Most of these desirable jobs require highly skilled workers in managerial, healthcare and STEM fields.
The report also found the higher the offered salary or wage, the more likely the job would provide employer-sponsored benefits. For example, during both therecession and recovery, workers with good jobs were more than twice as likely to have health and retirement benefits than low-wage workers. Well-paying jobs were also more likely to be full-time (86%) as opposed to low wage jobs (62%).
As the study shows, to secure a higher quality of life it has become a necessity to obtain a college degree or credential, especially since the Great Recession. “This has been a weak recovery, but the American job machine is working again for college graduates,” said Anthony Carnevale, CEW’s director and lead author of the report.