News Updates

Technology polarizes job opportunities in the Chicago region

Middle skill job opportunities have become harder to find. Between 1980 and 2016, the U.S. labor market exhibited patterns of what economist have termed ‘polarization’ with stronger demand for workers on both the low and high ends of the skill distribution. Many factors — cyclical, structural, and policy-related — have contributed to these trends. These factors occur at both the national and regional levels, leading to disparate patterns of employment across metropolitan areas in the nation.

The Chicago region has not been immune to the job polarization observed nationally. Technology in particular drove patterns of polarization in metropolitan Chicago, as elsewhere. But this analysis found that production jobs were particularly affected by polarization in the region. Metropolitan Chicago’s historical concentration of manufacturing jobs exacerbated the effects of a structural shift toward a service-based economy. The loss of middle skill jobs presents a challenge for the region. Middle skill jobs are often accessible to workers with less than a college degree and provide more opportunities for career advancements than low skilled jobs. Understanding the forces behind these trends can guide policy recommendations to increase the resilience and inclusiveness of the region’s workforce.

This policy update is the second in a series examining occupation and employment patterns in metropolitan Chicago over the past several decades. The first policy update examined labor market trends at the national level and reviewed economic literature explaining these trends. This 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.