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 United States 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.
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A study from The Atlantic's CityLab confirms that U.S. 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:
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The U.S. economy added more than 12 million jobs between 2011 and 2016, a healthy 9 percent increase.
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Low-wage jobs outpaced high-wage jobs, 4.5 million to 4.1 million.
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3.5 million mid-wage jobs were also created.
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The current breakdown of all jobs in 2016 had high-wage jobs slightly ahead of low-wage jobs by a 37 percent to 34 percent margin, with the remainder (29 percent) labeled mid-wage jobs.
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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.
The top 10 metro areas for growth tends to support this coastal growth theory:
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Provo, Utah (26.8 percent).
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Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida (25.8 percent).
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Austin,Texas (21.9 percent).
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San Jose, California (21.3 percent).
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Orlando, Florida (19.6 percent).
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Riverside, California (19.3 percent).
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San Francisco (19 percent).
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North Point-Sarasota, Florida (18.9 percent).
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Raleigh, North Carolina (18.5 percent).
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Stockton, California (18.2 percent).
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But, the study's authors concede, the data is more complicated than "coastal cities grew with low-wage jobs." As they note:
"Provo is first in high-wage job growth (26.6 percent), first in mid-wage job growth (29.2 percent) and second in low-wage job growth (25.6 percent). That said, tech hubs tend to lead in high-wage job growth with San Jose second (23.4 percent), Austin third (21.4 percent) and San Francisco fourth (21 percent). Cape Coral is fifth in high-wage job growth (20 percent) but second in mid-wage job growth (27.4 percent) and first in low-wage job growth (27.9 percent)."
Still trying to decide where to relocate where high-paying jobs are plentiful? Probably best to throw yourself on the mercy of a recruiter and hope for the best.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
