Seen Around: Lower-wage economy

The good news is businesses are hiring again. The bad news is that a higher percentage of these new jobs are low-wage.

So says a national labor report released Wednesday regarding jobs opening up in Florida and an analysis published Sunday in the St. Petersburg Times.

The report by National Employment Law Project, as quoted in a SP Times column, is sobering: Low-wage jobs paying between $9.03 and 12.91 an hour made up 23 percent of the jobs lost in the recession, but are 49 percent of the recent jobs. And high wage jobs between $19 and $31.40 an hour accounted for 40 percent of the recession job losses, but only 14 percent of the new jobs.

The big question: Is this just the way the recovery is starting out, and the higher wage jobs will return when the economy picks up steam, or is this a harbinger of a future of more low-wage jobs? The answer to that question will impact millions of people in Florida and across the country.

John Burr
Jacksonville Business Journal