News Updates

Technology, tastes, and demographic shifts contribute to job polarization in the U.S.

Over the past several decades, broad macroeconomic trends reshaped the composition of the U.S. labor market, including a growing demand for services, technological advancements, and a diversifying workforce. These structural shifts, combined with the 2007-09 recession, resulted in a greater number of high and low skill jobs relative to middle skill jobs. For workers, these changes reshaped skill requirements and the value of an education. For employers, these changes reshaped hiring and training practices.

GO TO 2040 called for the Chicago region to develop strategies to prepare a high-quality, skilled workforce for the changing global economy. CMAP is working to better understand labor market shifts and the forces behind these trends to develop relevant recommendations that advance GO TO 2040 and inform the region’s forthcoming comprehensive plan, ON TO 2050. Empirical studies have analyzed forces behind national labor market shifts, but the effects of these forces vary by region warranting a deeper local analysis. This policy update reviews and synthesizes national findings to provide a foundation to understand employment trends in northeastern Illinois. 

This policy update is the first in a series examining occupation and employment patterns in metropolitan Chicago over the past several decades. This first policy update examines labor market trends at the national level and reviews economic research explaining these trends. The second update hones in on how our unique industrial mix and workforce shaped employment trends in the region. The third compares shifts in peer metropolitan areas.