While the economy has continued to add jobs at a steady clip, most workers’ paychecks are growing at a more moderate pace. But workers in certain jobs have seen substantial raises.
Average weekly earnings increased 4.91% over the past year for people working in financial services, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s well above the 2.91% wage growth that was recorded for all private, non-farm employees. The average weekly earnings for someone in this sector, which includes everyone from stockbrokers to insurance adjusters to real estate agents, is $1,418.40.
Other sectors that recorded strong wage growth year-over-year included the information sector (4.01%), which includes companies in tech, and mining and logging (3.62%).
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Coincidentally, these three industries have some of the highest average pay overall. The only sector where workers earn more on average is utilities. But employees of utility companies only saw their weekly earnings grow by 2.21% over the past year on average.
When managers are taken out of the calculations though, a very different picture emerges. People who work in non-supervisory roles for companies that manufacture non-durable goods such as cosmetics or processed foods saw a 5.08% pay raise in their average weekly earnings over the past year. Non-managers in leisure and hospitality also saw their earnings increase somewhat substantially over the last year, with 4.17% annual wage growth.
Positions in these industries are generally lower paying — particularly in hospitality, where the average weekly earnings for non-supervisory employees are less than $340. And there’s one specific reason for that wage growth, according to Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank. “When you’re seeing stronger growth for low wage jobs, a lot of that is just due to raising the minimum wage,” Shierholz said. “Otherwise, generally the higher you go up the wage distribution, the more growth you’ll see.”
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Overall, people who aren’t managers had their average weekly pay grow by 3.13% year over year.
When looking at specific jobs, employees of men’s clothing stores experienced a 34.7% raise between February 2017 and January 2018, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But Shierholz attributed that to volatility in the data, and not a larger trend. Nevertheless, wage growth for retail workers did exceed the national average, at 3.16%.
After leaving managers out of the equation, construction contractor jobs are among those that have seen the greatest wage hikes over the past year. In particular, contractors who work on building exteriors have seen their weekly earnings grow by 22.3% on average, and people who handle flooring have welcomed a 13.5% uptick in their weekly wages.
Some of that can be explained by a shortage of construction workers, which has also hampered the resurgence in homebuilding activity nationwide. “If there is a shortage of workers, then you should be seeing stronger wage growth,” Shierholz said.