Wage growth is steady, ADP workforce report finds

Overall wage growth increased by 2.3 percent year over year across all industries in the first quarter of 2017, according to the ADP Workforce Vitality Report.Overall wage growth increased by 2.3 percent year over year across all industries in the first quarter of 2017, according to the ADP Workforce Vitality Report.

The Roseland-based company said this is somewhat lower than the 2.8 percent growth in wages reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The report, which tracks the same set of workers over time, “provides a more insightful picture of wage growth than overall wage growth.”

According to the study, job holder’ (people who stay in the same job for at least a year) wages were up by 4.3 percent and job switchers’ (people who change jobs) wages were up 3.6 percent year over year in the first quarter.

On average, job holders’ made $10 more hourly than job switchers, the study found. But when tracking full-time workers, job switchers increased their wages by an average of 5.2 percent when compared to job holders (4.3 percent).

Across all industries, the services sector is the most promising for job switchers compared to the goods sector, the report said. The information industry continued to offer the highest hourly wages, where job holders earned $45 an hour and job switchers earned $47 an hour. Meanwhile, full-time workers who switched jobs to the leisure and hospitality industry gained the most with an 8.5 percent increase in their wages.

“The information industry showed negative job growth in the first quarter,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, co-head of the ADP Research Institute, said. “As a result, job holders and job switchers in this industry are experiencing high wage growth, as employers seek to retain and attract top talent in this limited pool of workers.”

The study also found that the strongest wage growth can be found in the West, the leisure and hospitality industry, among women and younger workers, workers with little job tenure and those employed in larger companies.