During recovery, pay raise in few industries leads to raise in others. Workers became flexible to prefer a job with better pay options. The increase in pay went down due to the sub par recovery.
Technology is being playing significant role too. Though it definitely has lifted the pay for people, yet workers in industries has been upended by the Internet, such as retailers left behind by e-commerce.
Statistically there would be a rise in pay in most of the sectors at this stage in the economy’s recovery. Even with the official end of Great Recession five years back, there have been uneven raises across the industries and it has hardly matched up the prices. The overall rise of the pay is roughly equal to inflation and is approximately 2% per year.
In a few flourishing industries like energy, transportation, health care, technology, the maximum raises have gone to workers with specialized skills.
According to an economist at PayScale, a pay-tracking firm, Katie Bardaro,”Your working industry matters a lot. If you have the adequate skill and you’re in a demanding field, the chance of getting a raise is much higher.”
One of the industry with maximum pay rise are the tech surge. Any temp worker would prefer a full-time jobs with benefits with at least their pay increasing. According to a staffing firm Robert Half International, in the first quarter they had to raise the rates it charges employers by 2.6% to accommodate the demand for higher pay for its temps which is a point higher than its increase late last year.
Another such industry is Housing. Just after the arrival of housing bust a large number of the skilled workers who are needed to build homes fled to other careers. Now, there aren’t adequate number of them. According to the BLS, since their wages began to increase in 2012, home construction workers have received an average 3.3% raise a year. It has dropped by 4% over the last two years. On the other hand raises can be witnessed in Government budgets as well. The Government budget cuts mean inadequate wage gains for local, state and federal workers.
According to Haver Analytic, a data provider, Wages rose less than 1% in 2013. David Van De Voort, a principal at Buck Consultants said, “The unions aren’t pushing for more .They’re focused on job security and retaining benefits.”
