After a decade in which wages and employment fell precipitously in low-skill occupations and expanded in high …-skill occupations, the shape of U.S. earnings and job growth sharply polarized in the 1990s. Employment shares and relative earnings … rose in both low and high-skill jobs, leading to a distinct U-shaped relationship between skill levels and employment and …

Even before the Great Recession, U.S. employment growth was unimpressive. Between 2000 and 2007, the economy gave back … the considerable employment gains achieved during the 1990s, with a historic contraction in manufacturing employment being … force behind both recent reductions in U.S. manufacturing employment and - through input-output linkages and other general …