THE Center for Workforce Research and Information released average weekly wage data for the first quarter of this year for Maine. Overall, wages leveled off from Q1 2013 to Q1 2014, with real wages for all industries declining $1.40, and real wages for service providing industries and goods producing industries declining $1.59 and $2.56, respectively.
This one year of data should not be too alarming, as real wages had been climbing every since 2010 – 2013. Moreover, total wages and wages for goods and service industries above their pre-recession levels, though just barely. Total real wages are up 1.7% from 2007, with goods producing wages up 3.8% and service providing up 1.9%.
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*data is for the first quarter of each year
Another thing to note is the shift in employment from the higher paying goods producing sector to the lower from the start of the recession. In 2007, average total employment for the first quarter was 479,325, with goods producing employment at 90,970 (19% of total employment), and service providing employment at 388,355 (81%). In total employment shrank to 468,634, with goods producing employment down 14,364 to 76,606 (16% of total employment) with service providing employment up slightly at 392,028 (84%).