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Wage growth has slowed from the torrid pace of the pandemic era. But there are still pockets of heat.
Workers receive relatively large annual raises in professions such as law, dental care, child care, cleaning and sanitation, and medical information, for example, according to a new analysis from the site d Indeed employment.
Nationally, salaries rose 3.1% annually in March, well below the recent peak of 9.3% in January 2022, according to Indeed, which tracks the average salary advertised in its job postings online.
However, there are “huge variations across industries,” according to Julia Pollak, chief economist at career site ZipRecruiter.
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At a high level, salary growth is above average in 47% of employment sectors, according to Indeed analysis.
Among them, it is highest in the legal profession: Indeed found that average workers saw their salaries increase at a rate of 5.7% in March 2024 compared to a year earlier. This represents a drop of just 0.1 percentage points from six months ago.
The analysis found that the dental and childcare sectors ranked close behind, each with annual growth of 4.8%; medical information and cleaning and sanitation jobs rank close behind, both at 3.9 percent.
For comparison, software developers experienced the lowest annual growth since March 2023, at 0.4%. This is down from the recent high of 9% reached in April 2022.
However, strong wage growth does not necessarily translate into high pay.
“I don’t think anyone will leave their software developer job to work in a daycare because the wage growth is higher,” said Allison Shrivastava, a labor economist and author of the Indeed report. “But if you worked in (similar-paying) jobs in retail or food preparation and wanted higher wages, it might be worth looking into,” she said. -she declared.
The average educator earns $15.42 per hour and $32,070 per year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For comparison, software developers earn $66.40 per hour and $138,110 per year, according to BLS data. Dentists earn on average about $96.57 per hour and $200,870 per year.
Wage growth surged in 2021 and 2022 as employers had to “roll out the red carpet” for workers at a time when labor was scarce and workers were “demanding to be healed in the face of inflation,” Pollak said.
She said this spike also “peaked at different times for different industries” during the Covid-19 pandemic due to a “complex web” of factors such as labor supply and demand.
Some positions, like in-person jobs in food service, became less attractive overnight after the pandemic led to a significant shift to remote work. Employee turnover has increased faster in in-person professions than in remote ones, Pollak said.
For example, workers in accommodation and food services saw annual income growth peak at 16.1% in December 2021, according to data from ZipRecruiter. For comparison, it appears that players in the information sector saw their growth peak at 7.8% in September 2022.
Current national wage growth is in line with the 2019 pre-pandemic average, indicating a labor market widely considered healthy.
Even though the average worker has enjoyed historically rapid wage growth in the recent past, their wages have not kept pace with inflation. As inflation has fallen, purchasing power has increased again on average.
Indeed’s Shrivastava said the job market “has cooled off from a really, really feverish pace.” However, she added, the situation has cooled and “seems more sustainable” for workers and businesses.
cnbc
