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Ten States Losing White and Blue-Collar Jobs

Guest post by: Carl Moore

Article Overview: The unemployment rate for workers with a college degree is 4.4 percent, as compared to 10 percent for those with only a high-school education. Nonetheless, an analysis found that some seven states have decreased the percentage of their workforce in white-collar jobs over the past decade.

Ten States Losing White and Blue-Collar Jobs

The recession has driven home the fact that not all jobs are created equal. Over the past decade, the size of the American blue-collar workforce has declined substantially. Between 2000 and 2010, the economy lost roughly 4 million blue-collar jobs, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, mainly as a result of manufacturing job losses, the housing crisis and, of course, the recession. Even with the economic downturn, however, middle-aged people with higher-paying jobs have fared better than most.

Blue-collar jobs face both structural and cyclical difficulties. Early in the decade, the manufacturing base in the U.S. began eroding swiftly as companies accelerated the relocation of plants to areas of the world with inexpensive labor, most notably China and Mexico. Later in the decade, as the housing market collapsed and the economy fell into recession, large industries like auto manufacturing were further hurt by drops in demand.

The housing crisis hit another segment of blue-collar jobs. Falling home prices nearly halted the building of new houses, and the home construction workforce was decimated. In states like California and Nevada, some home values plunged by more than 60%. Construction jobs in those areas disappeared. Property values fell sharply in other states like Arizona and Florida. Across the entire country, the construction industry shed a million jobs from 2000 to 2010.

By contrast, white-collar workers have weathered the recession relatively well.

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