Charts of the Day: Job Polarization

Virginia employment change since 2008. Source: StatChat

The good news in the ongoing evolution of Virginia’s economy is that employment in high-paying occupations has increased since 2008. The bad news is that employment in low-paying occupations has risen as well while employment in middle-class occupations is shrinking.

Kathryn Crespin with the Demographics Research Group at the University of Virginia published these charts from Bureau of Labor Statistics data in the StatChat blog.

“Job polarization is certainly not unique to Virginia,” she writes, but the trend has been more noticeable here since 2008 than in the rest of the country. … Although there has been an uptick in middle-wage job growth in Virginia over the past few years, job polarization is a nationwide, long-term trend that has developed over the past few decades and shows no signs of resolution any time soon.”

Virginia employment change since 2008. Source: StatChat