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Organizing workers and bargaining for wage and benefit improvements will become more difficult over the next decade as labor market trends continue to undercut the unionized sectors and job growth occurs primarily at the lower end of the wage spectrum.
The U.S. economy will add 18.9 million jobs by 2014, but half of all the new wage and salary positions will be in relatively low-paying jobs in health care, educational services, employment services, restaurants and bars, state and local government and wholesale trade, according to new forecasts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The fastest job growth will occur in professional occupations, which will represent 28.5 million jobs in 2014, up 21.2 percent from 2004. The service occupations will account for 27.7 million workers, up 19.0 percent from 2004. The third highest growth rate will occur in management, business and financial occupations, which will rise 14.4 percent to 15.0 million workers. Despite talk about looming labor shortages, the BLS data do not indicate that there will be a major shortage of workers. There is no sign of labor markets tightening to the point that would automatically drive up wages and end the ongoing decline in real wage growth. In fact, when the business cycle turns down and the next recession hits, workers will be in a far worse position than they were during the 2001 recession, when some workers had been able to reduce their debt burden after several years of decent wage growth. Current projections indicate that the percentage of the workforce with a bachelor’s or higher degree will remain roughly stable at 30 percent, a sufficient number to match job growth in occupations requiring a college education. Instead of a widespread labor shortage, we are more likely to see a continuation of tight markets for employees with highly specialized skills and, at the other end of the spectrum, for workers with the basic skills needed to perform in low-end service occupations. The broad trends documented in the new BLS data include the following: ..In the relatively higher-wage blue-collar manufacturing, construction and utilities industries, there will be no overall job growth over the next decade. These three sectors will employ 21.9 million workers in 2014, roughly the same number as today. Manufacturing and utilities will cut jobs. Construction will add 792,000 new jobs by 2014, up 11.4 percent from 2004. ..Machinery manufacturing will drop 146,000 jobs, a decline of 12.8 percent, by 2014. Textile manufacturing will shed 321,000 jobs, or almost half of all jobs left in this sector, by 2014. Chemical manufacturing will cut 86,000 jobs. ..Employment service firms, such as temporary employment agencies, will add 1.6 million jobs before 2014, an increase of 45.5 percent, with employment in this sector reaching 5.1 million. ..Educational services will add 2.1 million workers by 2014, up 16.6 percent, bringing total employment for this sector to 14.9 million. ..Health care will add 3.6 million workers by 2014, a 27.3 percent increase, with total health care industry employment reaching 16.3 million workers. ..Employers in the low-wage leisure industry will hire 2.2 million new workers by 2014, up 17.7 percent, bringing the industry total to 14.7 million workers. ..The low-wage trade sector will add 2.1 million jobs by 2014, up 10.3 percent, including gains of 423,000 jobs in clothing and general merchandise stores and 476,000 wholesale trade jobs. ..Transportation will add 506,000 jobs, primarily in the truck transportation sector. ..Telecommunications will shed 68,000 jobs, bringing the total for 2014 down to 975,000. ..Industries with the highest rates of unionization – including air transportation, steel production and motor vehicles – will all see heavy job losses by 2014. Industries with the lowest rates of unionization, such as food services and computer services, will see double-digit job growth. The BLS also recently reported data on the size of establishments, which affects the success and cost of organizing drives. Sixty percent of establishments employ fewer than five workers. These very small businesses employ only 6.8 percent of the workforce. The very largest employers – those with more than 500 workers – represent only 0.2 percent of all establishments but account for 17.3 percent of the workforce. Between and within industries, establishment size varies widely. In the health care industry, for example, hospitals employ an average of 725 workers, while physicians’ offices employ an average of 10. These factors do not paint a pretty picture for union organizing or for negotiating contract improvements for U.S. workers over the next decade. |
