The Vanishing Middle: Job Polarization and Workers' Response to the Decline in Middle-Skill Jobs

Abstract

L. Willis is an assistant vice president and economist at the bank. Shujaat Khan, a research associate, helped in the preparation of the article. This article is on the bank’s website at www.KansasCityFed.org. 5 Over the past three decades, the share of middle-skill jobs in the United States has fallen sharply. Middle-skill jobs are those in which workers primarily perform routine tasks that are proce-dural and repetitive. The decline in the employment share of middle-skill jobs has been associated with a number of sweeping changes affect-ing the economy, including advancement of technology, outsourcing of jobs overseas, and contractions that have occurred in manufacturing. As the share of middle-skill jobs has shrunk, the share of high-skill jobs has grown, and that trend has drawn considerable attention. Less well known is the fact that the share of low-skill jobs has also risen. This employment phenomenon where job opportunities have shifted away from middle-skill jobs toward high- and low-skill jobs is called “job polarization.”