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Rust Belt Employment Up in August, but Job Growth Still Lags National Trend

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Nationwide, the state with the largest unemployment increase in August was the Rust Belt state of Indiana (0.4 percentage points). California, New Jersey, Oregon and another Rust Belt state, West Virginia, each saw a 0.3 percentage point increase in unemployment. Over the last year, Indiana and West Virginia have experienced unemployment increases of 0.9 percentage […]

Blue Collar Jobs Down in Rust Belt as the Country on the Whole Continues to See Job Growth

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New York continues to see the largest losses in manufacturing jobs in the Rust Belt. The latest state jobs report shows that overall employment grew strongly in 11 states and Washington, DC, while only Georgia lost a substantial number of jobs (-14,100 or -0.3 percent) in July.

Black Women’s Equal Pay Day and Differences in Pay in Driving Occupations

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Today is Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, the day when a black woman’s pay catches up to the average white man’s 2016 pay, for those with high school degrees. This means that a black woman would have worked until nearly August 2017 in order to reach parity for 2016. This gap persists at all education […]

Note to Employers: the Construction Labor Market Not as Tight as Advertised

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Numerous recent news stories describe the labor market for construction jobs as excessively tight [1]. Construction employers struggle to find blue collar workers, these stories claim, and therefore are supposedly offering luxurious compensation packages to entice people to take jobs in the industry, or are forced to turn down work. These employers and journalists often […]