Consumers aren’t flocking to retail stores or spending as much as expected in light of strong U.S. employment growth, but it’s not because most new jobs pay poorly.

Some economists speculate that consumer spending is lukewarm because of a recent shift in hiring toward lower-paying work, but government employment statistics don’t bear out those claims.

First the bad news.

Hiring trends in February and March were slanted toward lower-paying positions such as retail clerks, waiters and hotel cleaners. About half of all the new jobs created in February and March paid less than the average U.S wage of $25.43 an hour.

If the trend in the past two months continues, it would be a worrisome sign. Yet the labor market often shows sharp short-term fluctuations in the quality of jobs. The longer-term trend is more favorable.

The composition of new jobs generated over the past 12 months, for example, has been tilted strongly toward better-paying work, a MarketWatch review of employment data found.

Some 58% of the jobs created from April 2015 to March 2016 paid above the average hourly wage, mainly in white-collar jobs in business and health care. Construction firms also added a lot of hard hats.

The gains in higher-paid jobs has taken place despite the loss of nearly 150,000 positions in the energy industry in the past year alone. Workers involved in oil, gas and coal extraction are among the best paid in the country.

How do hiring trends stack up historically? Nearly 60% of all new jobs created typically pay above the average wage when the economy is performing well.

This recovery is no different. The quality of new jobs declined early in the recovery and returned to normal by 2012, except for a brief dip in 2014.

“This is exactly what we have seen in past economic cycles,” said Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial in Birmingham, Ala.

The modest pace of consumer spending, what’s more, is actually a good thing, he argued. American are saving more instead of relying so heavily on credit cards and loans as they have done in prior economic expansions. “The foundation under consumers is much sturdier than it was in the past.”

The labor market is not without problems, of course. Most workers in the retail and hospitality sectors, for instance, work 30 hours or less. The amount of time employees will allow them to work has also fallen a bit. That means they need a second job if they want to boost their incomes.

Wages for all workers are also rising more slowly than usual. Hourly pay, adjusted for inflation, is increasing at just slightly more than 2% a year. That’s just two-thirds as fast as in prior economic revivals.

With the unemployment down to an eight-year low of 5%, however, upward pressure on wages appears to be emerging.

Giant payroll processor ADP, for instance, issued a report on Wednesday saying wage growth over the past 12 months accelerated to 4.6% in the first quarter from 4.1% a year earlier. (ADP uses a different calculation compared to the Bureau of Labor Statistics)

“This may be a signal that continued employment growth is leading to a smaller pool of available talent, in turn motivating employers to increase wages to retain experienced workers,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, head of the ADP Research Institute.