Economics News Release - The quality of U.S. jobs fell dramatically during the past three years "NOT ALL JOBS ARE CREATED EQUAL" ACCORDING TO CIBC WORLD MARKETS U.S. EMPLOYMENT QUALITY INDEX TORONTO, June 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The past three years have seen a notable drop in the quality of U.S. jobs, according to the CIBC World Markets' US Employment Quality Index (EQI). The CIBCWM EQI has fallen eight points since 2001, reflecting the recent trend towards lower-paying, less stable, self-employed and part-time jobs at the expense of higher-quality jobs in sectors such as the transportation, utilities, natural resources and manufacturing industries. "The message is clear," says CIBC World Markets' senior economist Benjamin Tal, author of the report. "The vast majority of jobs that evaporated during the 'job-loss' recovery were high-quality jobs." The CIBC World Markets EQI examines the key factors of job stability, relative compensation, and part-time vs. full-time employment in establishing the Index. By examining these critical factors, the employment trends in the economy can be interpreted in greater context. The report indicates that the number of part-timers rose more than 5% since early 2002, while the number of self-employed Americans rose by just under 5% -- much faster than the 1.7% growth observed among regular employees. More importantly, since the economic expansion got underway in late 2001, the number of jobs in high-paying industries fell by more than 2% while the number of jobs in low-paying industries rose by 1.2%. "Given that swap of good for bad jobs and the current employment distribution, it will take 20% more jobs than in the last extension to generate the same salary gain," Tal concludes. On a positive note, the report indicates that recent months have actually seen a modest turnaround in employment quality figures, reflecting a faster pace of job creation in higher-paying sectors such as natural resources, construction and professionals. While this represents normal cyclical behavior, the overall drop in the quality index in recent years means that the labor market will have to close not only the employment gap but also the quality gap. A copy of CIBC World Markets' Monthly Indicators Report is available at http://research.cibcwm.com/res/Eco/EcoResearch.html CIBC World Markets is a full service corporate and investment bank throughout North America, with operations in Asia, Europe and Australia, and serving more than 8,000 corporate, government and institutional clients. CIBC World Markets' parent company is CIBC, one of North America's first and largest financial institutions with offices in 18 countries, including the world's major financial centers. A publicly traded financial services company, CIBC has assets of US$210.1 billion and a market capitalization of almost US$16.2 billion. DATASOURCE: CIBC World Markets CONTACT: Benjamin Tal, Senior Economist, CIBC World Markets at (416) 956-3698, ; or Rod Cumming, Senior Manager, Marketing and Communications, CIBC World Markets at (416) 594-7774 or

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