Frontline supervisor roles—once a crucial rung on the career ladder for working-class employees—are quietly disappearing across the U.S. economy, The Washington Post writes.
New analysis of decades of Census and American Community Survey data shows that while white-collar management positions continue to grow, traditional supervisors such as foremen and team leads have steadily declined since peaking around the year 2000.
Economists say the shift isn’t simply about automation or restructuring, but about titles themselves. Many jobs that once carried “supervisor” labels are now rebranded as “manager,” often without meaningful changes in pay or responsibility.
The trend appears closely tied to the growing share of college-educated workers and employers’ efforts to make lower-level roles more attractive—or exempt them from overtime rules.
The result is a workforce with more managers on paper, fewer true frontline leaders, and a blurrier picture of who actually holds authority on the job.
Read the full story from The Wall Street Journal.
Republican primary
