Who’s paying more for jobs during the Great Recession?

Finding work in the Great Recession has been difficult enough. But for the jobs that are out there, what's the recession done to wages?

A look at the newest data from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development show some winners and losers among industries.

Overall, median wages in Minnesota for open jobs have fallen from $11 an hour in the fourth quarter of 2007 at the cusp of recession to $10.19 an hour in the second three months of 2010, about a 7 percent drop.

Public administration saw the biggest cut in wages for open jobs during that period, dropping more than 50 percent to $8 an hour. Median wages for vacancies in mining jumped 40 percent, to $20.23 an hour.

Check out the chart below (click on the chart for a larger view). You find all the historical data here.

For sure, the data isn't perfect.

Take wages in real estate, for instance, where the median wage for vacant jobs stayed the same ($10 an hour) between the fourth quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of 2010.

Had I started with data from the second quarter of 2007, it would have looked like a cliff dive.

For whatever reason in that quarter the median hourly wage for vacant jobs in real estate was $33.65 -- an aberration -- so it would have looked as though wages for vacant real estate jobs had plunged during the recession.

(I chose the fourth quarter of 2007 since the recession began officially in December 2007.)

Check out the historical data and if you see anything surprising or counter intuitive, post below or drop us a line.

BONUS: Here's the MPR News story on the improving picture for job vacancies in Minnesota.

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