Chapman said California lost 127,000 manufacturing jobs and 55,000 jobs in the information sector from November 2001 to November 2003. Meanwhile, the leisure and hospitality sector gained 48,000 jobs, retail trade grew by 32,000 and health and education, which includes day-care teachers and low-wage hospital crews, grew by 65,000.
Understanding the differences among states will take more analysis, said Michael Ettlinger, an economist who coauthored the report. What it clearly shows, he said, is that job quality is diminishing across the country. "These trends are real and anybody who looks at this data will see that this is happening," he said.
Ron Bird, an economist with the Employment Policy Foundation, an employer-funded research group in Washington, offered a different assessment of the numbers. He divides job growth by broad categories of occupation -- such as manager or production worker -- instead of by sector, as the Economic Policy Institute did.
By his measure, Bird said, the growth appeared to favor higher-paying jobs. He said the highest growth was in office and administrative jobs and in installation, maintenance and repair jobs, both of which pay higher-than-average wages.
"The jobs where the growth was had higher average earnings," said Bird, whose analysis looked only at full-time jobs and did not break down the data by state. "It's a matter of looking at the glass as half empty or more than half full."
For Joely Gardener of Carlsbad, a laid-off executive from the high-tech field, there's no question about which way to view the job market. She has been scanning employment postings since losing her post as a research director at France Telecom in Silicon Valley in August. After searching in California for five months, she recently expanded her job quest nationwide. Still, Gardener, who has a doctorate and is a licensed psychologist, doesn't have a single hot lead.
"I've been having a hell of a time finding the right job," she said. "I'm seeing an upswing in lower-level jobs in my field; they tend to be entry-level positions. I know other people in the same boat. What we're finding is that because of the glut of qualified professionals on the market, companies are being incredibly restrictive in how they look at people."
Her story is familiar to researchers focused on improving the local and state economies.
