Provo, Utah, leads the list of top 10 metro areas for job growth. (Photo: iStock)

According to a recent article from GlobeSt.com sister publication, ALM's BenefitsPro.com, if you're in one of those restaurant-crazed cities such as San Francisco, New York or Los Angeles, you know that you've seen a lot more tattooed young servers and sous chefs on the streets and in the bistros in the past few years.

They are among the workers driving a steady jobs growth in the US. And while those jobs may be exciting and, sometimes, rewarding, in general the increase in those types of jobs is not a particularly good sign for the nation's economy.

Except that it suggests that other people have more discretionary dollars to spend on dining out.

A study from The Atlantic's CityLab confirms that US jobs are increasing, but that the increases tend to be concentrated in a few geographic areas and that the fastest-growing positions do not pay very well.

CityLab culled data from a data collection company, Emsi, to develop its economic growth report. Among the findings:

The U.S. economy added more than 12 million jobs between 2011 and 2016, a healthy 9% increase.
Low-wage jobs outpaced high-wage jobs, 4.5 million to 4.1 million.
3.5 million mid-wage jobs were also created.
The current breakdown of all jobs in 2016 had high-wage jobs slightly ahead of low-wage jobs by a 37% to 34% margin, with the remainder (29%) labeled mid-wage jobs.
Thus high-wage jobs are still in the lead, but low-wage positions are catching up fast.

Then, when the study broke out regional growth, it found areas of high growth tended to “cluster on the coasts,” with big spikes in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Portland (but not Seattle), Florida and the Carolinas.

To read more about the top 10 metro areas for growth tends to support this coastal growth theory, check out the full article by clicking here.

Except that it suggests that other people have more discretionary dollars to spend on dining out.

CityLab culled data from a data collection company, Emsi, to develop its economic growth report. Among the findings:

The U.S. economy added more than 12 million jobs between 2011 and 2016, a healthy 9% increase.
Low-wage jobs outpaced high-wage jobs, 4.5 million to 4.1 million.
3.5 million mid-wage jobs were also created.
The current breakdown of all jobs in 2016 had high-wage jobs slightly ahead of low-wage jobs by a 37% to 34% margin, with the remainder (29%) labeled mid-wage jobs.
Thus high-wage jobs are still in the lead, but low-wage positions are catching up fast.

To read more about the top 10 metro areas for growth tends to support this coastal growth theory, check out the full article by clicking here.

Instant Insights /

Go West For High Paying Jobs

Related Stories

Recommended For You