Fastest job growth is in low- and middle-wage industries

Low- and middle-wage jobs have grown the fastest this year, indicating that even if employers pick up the pace in job creation, robust consumer spending may still be elusive.

That’s according to a report out Wednesday from the National Employment Law Project, which used two data sets from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to examine the wages of growth industries.

About 35% of the jobs lost in 2008 and 2009 were in industries that pay between $8.92 and $15.00 an hour, at the bottom two-fifths of the wage spectrum, the report says. But those jobs accounted for 76% of net growth in 2010.

“Driving growth off of low-wage jobs is no way to jump-start consumer demand, never mind giving families the way to support themselves,” said Annette Bernhardt, policy co-director at the NELP and the author of the report.

The low-wage industries include retail, food services and drinking places, nursing and residential-care facilities, and administrative and waste services. Some growth also occurred in mid-wage industries such as manufacturing, wholesale trade, hospitals and ambulatory healthcare services.

Industries that pay between $17.43 and $31.02 an hour, at the top two-fifths of the wage spectrum, contributed only 5% of net job growth in 2010, after accounting for 48% of losses in 2008 and 2009.

Two top-wage industries, construction and finance, lost hundreds of thousands of jobs and haven’t gained many, which accounts for some of the sluggish growth, Bernhardt said. The median wage for a construction job is $19.24, while finance and insurance pays $20.54.

The top five occupations in industries with net growth between 2008 and 2009 were retail salespersons; cashiers; food preparation and serving workers, including fast food; waiters and waitresses; and registered nurses. Those industries have median hourly wages of $9.92, $8.73, $8.43, $8.69 and $31.41, respectively.

Some parts of the report are not surprising — employers often hire temporary workers, one of the growth industries in the report, in the early parts of recoveries. And some service-sector jobs, such as those at grocery stores, didn’t experience huge job losses and are somewhat insulated from recessions because consumers need them.

But the report may indicate that wage inequalities that began before the Great Recession are becoming even more pronounced, Bernhardt said.

“Before we entered the recession, we were already on a path of growing inequality,” she said. “These early data sound a warning bell that trend may be restarting itself again.”

Still, with the national unemployment rate at 9.5%, many workers said they’re willing to accept any job, regardless of the pay.

Jesus Gonzalez was laid off from his vegetable-packing job six months ago. The 60-year-old Baldwin Park resident and his family are subsisting on the money his wife makes occasionally cleaning houses. What he really wants, though, is a job. Any job. And that, he can’t find.

“There is no work, there is no work, there is no work,” he said.

alana.semuels@latimes.com