(The Georgetown researchers relied on the government’s Current Population Survey, rather than on a different government count, Current Employment Statistics. Each has drawbacks, and Current Employment Statistics showed deeper job losses during the recession, but the overall patterns were similar.)
The disparity in employment based on education has been growing since the 1980s, Mr. Carnevale said, but “both the recession and the recovery have sharply accelerated that structural change.”
The manufacturing, construction and transportation industries, which depend heavily on less-educated workers, had the sharpest job losses in the recession. Those fields are also dominated by men, leading to much commentary that it was a mostly male recession.