Hiring of Blue Collar Workers Increased in 2018 outpacing Hiring and Demand for White Collar Workers
Hiring of blue-collar workers in industries such as manufacturing, mining, and construction increased in 2018 with the help of the oil prices increase and housing market recovery according to economist, Kamins at Moody’s Analytics.
Jobs that require manual labor are in high demand nationwide, even more so than many higher-level jobs that require a college degree, reversing a longstanding tend according to the Conference Board. “Greater demand for—and shrinking supply of—blue-collar workers are leading to a reality where there are simply not enough people in the labor force willing to work in these jobs,” says Gad Levanon, chief economist of the Conference Board. This rings true for Southern Arizona as experienced by The Temp Connection and other staffing firms.
This trend is resulting in faster pay increases for blue-collar jobs and annual wage growth topped 3% in recent months compared with 2.5% for white-collar jobs according to the U.S. Dept. of Labor and the Conference Board as reported by Davidson of USA Today.
