Five year after the Great Recession ended and the percentage of the pouplation employed continues to languish near its crash lows - despite seasonally-adjusted jobs data signaling the re-creation of 9 million jobs. However, as The NY Times [5] illustrates in this massively impressive chart series, not all industries have 'recovered' equally.
Each line below shows how the number of jobs has changed for a particular industry over the past 10 years. Scroll down to see how the recession reshaped the nation’s job market, industry by industry...
A Mixed Recovery
Industries in the health care and energy sectors grew substantially over the last five years, while jobs in real estate and construction continued to shrink. Industries that paid in the middle of the wage spectrum generally lost jobs.
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More Bad — and Good — Jobs
Americans often lament the quality of jobs today, and some low-paying industries — like fast food, where annual average pay is less than $22,000 — are growing. But so are some high-paying sectors, such as consulting, computing and biotech.
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The Medical Economy
The middle-wage industries that have added jobs are overwhelmingly in health care. Labs, home-care providers and dentist offices all pay between $18 and $29 an hour on average — and all have grown. But these gains have not offset losses in other middle-wage industries, such as airlines and construction.
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A Long Housing Bust
Home prices have rebounded from their crisis lows, but home building remains at historically low levels. Overall, industries connected with construction and real estate have lost 19 percent of their jobs since the recession began — hundreds of thousands more than health care has added.
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Made in America
Manufacturing has bounced back somewhat, adding 362,000 jobs since the recession ended. Labor-intensive industries that face global competition, like clothing production, fared worst, while higher-paying jobs in export-heavy industries, such as aerospace and medical equipment, have done better.
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Black Gold Rush
While it took a hit from the recession, oil and gas extraction — and its associated jobs — have been booming, transforming economies in resource-rich places like West Texas and North Dakota. Many of these industries have average salaries above $70,000.
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Digital Revolution
Bookstores, printers and publishers of newspapers and magazines have lost a combined 400,000 jobs since the recession began. Internet publishers — including web-search firms — offset only a fraction of the losses, adding 75,000 jobs. Electronic shopping and auctions made up the fastest-growing industry, tripling in employment in 10 years.
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Grooming Boom
In the midst of recession, Americans held on to simple luxuries — for themselves and their pets. Nail salons, which made up one of the most resilient industries, were closely rivaled by pet boarding, grooming and training.
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Click here for massive fully interactive version... [5]
And then there's this...
[14]
Mission Accomplished