Right. It depends on whether we're looking at fastest growing occupations:
http://www.bls.gov/emp/emptab3.htm or highest number of new jobs:
http://www.bls.gov/emp/emptab4.htm. Most of those new jobs are pretty low skilled and low paying but you'd have to also take into account that more people are needed to fill positions like cashier than brain surgeon and growth in those occupations is going to occur in a strong retail economy.
Now, is it possible that your article has cherry picked among those lists to bolster it's argument? For one thing, construction workers and teachers do trained and very respectable work but is it really high paying? Second, they may not be hiring office clerks and assembly line workers but the stats I posted indicate high growth for sales clerks and food prep workers so there are large gains being made in low paying work contrary to this statement: "virtually no growth at all in relatively lower-paying occupations" as taken directly from your article.
Basically, I think it's possible to take a large amount of statistics and paint a picture any way you want to. However, I also believe the economy is improving significantly in almost all areas.
Threaded Mode