Wages, Salaries and Compensation – Employment in the USA

Which skillsets make how many $$ in USA?

Which skillsets are gaining and losing jobs (left of the red line)? Adios better paying jobs!

Some notes:

Hourly value of skills depicted in left margin. The higher your bubble the more $ per hour.
The larger the bubble then the more people employed within that skillset and careerfield.
The red line = not good to be to the left of this line. Job losses happened here and there has been no bounce back!
Most of the high paying jobs have taken major hits; there is a jobless recovery in most of those fields (IT, finance, construction, insurance, professional and technical services, real estate).
These are national averages. The hourly wage will seem low in some major metropolitan areas. For some skillsets people may wonder how to make that much money. Location matters. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provides compensation information at the county and major cosmopolitan area. You can also get this information quicker by dropping by at USAJobZoo.com

As points of comparison:

The largest single careerfield in the USA is ‘Waiters and Waitresses’ at $8.69/hr or $18075.20 per year if fulltime and before tips.
Second largest careerfield: ‘Registered Nurses’ at $31.41/hr or $62,820 annually.
Most of America lives and earns between these two career groups. Average annual income in the USA: $45,113. Source: 2007, Census Bureau.

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Source of information:

Chart: National Employment Law Project, ‘Where the Jobs Are: A First Look at Private Industry Job Growth and Wages in 2010′, page 8, http://www.nelp.org/page/-/Justice/2010/WhereTheJobsAreAugust2010.pdf