Wages climb 2.9%

Companies vie for employees

WASHINGTON — U.S. workers are seeing the largest nominal wage increase in a decade, the Labor Department reported Wednesday, as companies compete harder for employees than they did in recent years.

Wages rose 2.9 percent from September 2017 to September 2018, according to the Labor Department’s Employment Cost Index, a widely watched measure of pay that does not take inflation into account. That is the biggest increase — not adjusted for inflation — since the year that ended in September 2008, when wages rose 3.1 percent.

When adjusted for inflation, wage increases were higher in 2015 and 2016 than they are now, according to the Employment Cost Index. In those years wages were only growing in a range of 2 percent to 2.5 percent a year, but inflation remained low.

Prices also have been rising in the past year, especially for gas and rent, but wages are outpacing inflation by a significant margin. Annual inflation was 2.3 percent in September, according to the Labor Department.

Sluggish pay growth has been one of the biggest problems in this recovery, but employers are finally having to raise wages at a more normal level typically

seen during good economic times.

Unemployment is at a 49-year low and there are more job openings than unemployed Americans, which forces companies to fight for available workers.

“Wages are grinding higher as the labor market continues to tighten,” said Justin Weidner, an economist at Deutsche Bank. “Wage growth is likely to be over 3 percent again soon.”

A separate report Wednesday showed businesses added 227,000 jobs in October, a sign that businesses can still find workers even with the unemployment rate striking 49-year lows.

Payroll processor ADP reported that employers added jobs in manufacturing, retail, construction, transportation, leisure and professional services such as engineering. October’s hiring was the strongest in eight months.

The unemployment rate fell to 3.7 percent in September, the lowest level since 1969. Businesses are staffing up at a rapid pace in response to healthy consumer spending and strong economic growth.

That is forcing more companies to raise pay to attract and keep workers.

On Friday, the Labor Department will release the other most-watched wage metric: average hourly earnings. Many economists expect that will be above 3 percent

for the first time since April 2009.

“How hot is the labor market? Hot enough for employers to pony up some more cash to get workers to come work for them,” wrote Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank, in a note to clients.

As Americans head to the polls for the midterm elections next week, consumer confidence is at the highest level since 2000, largely because people feel that job opportunities are plentiful, the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey showed Tuesday.

In a sign companies are struggling to find enough workers, just 23 percent of companies said they are not having any trouble hiring, down from 42 percent a year ago, according to a survey by the National Association for Business Economics released this week.

More than half of small businesses say they can find few, if any, qualified candidates for their open positions, according to the latest National Federation of Independent Business survey.

Small-business owners say they plan to increase employee compensation in the coming months at the fastest rate since the National Federation of Independent Business survey began in the 1980s.

Wage growth has been steadily rising in the past year, according to the Employment Cost Index. From September of 2016 to September of 2017, wages and salaries rose 2.5 percent, the Labor Department said.

Some have argued that companies were holding off on increasing wages because they were having to put more money toward benefits, but the Employment Cost Index also tracks benefits costs, and those have not risen as much as wages.

Benefits grew 2.6 percent in the year ending in September, versus 2.4 percent in the prior year.