U.S. Pay Chugs Along at 2.9 Percent Pace in February: Glassdoor Local Pay Reports

The latest edition of the Glassdoor Local Pay Reports shows U.S. median base pay growth chugged along at a 2.9 percent pace year over year in February to $51,272 per year. That’s down slightly from the 3.1 percent revised pay growth recorded last month, but is the same pace as in November and December of last year—a sign of today’s steady and strong job market. Pay Gains by Metro Among metros, both Los Angeles and Chicago tied for the fastest year-over-year growth in median base pay of 4.0 percent in February. That brings the median annual pay for full-time workers in Chicago to $56,277, and in Los Angeles to $59,068 according to Glassdoor data. For Chicago, this represents a slight slowdown in pay growth in February from last month’s blistering 4.2 percent growth rate, while in Los Angeles this represents a slight uptick in the rate of pay growth from last month’s 3.9 percent rate. One surprising pattern in the February Local Pay Report is possible early signs of a pay slowdown in the tech-heavy San Francisco metro. Median pay rose 2.5 percent in February to $65,818, below the U.S. average of 2.9 percent. That’s the first time pay growth in San Francisco has been below the U.S. average in more than two years, since November 2014. Pay growth in San Francisco peaked at a 4.2 percent rate in September 2016 and has fallen steadily each month since—a pattern we’ll be watching closely in coming months. In the New York metro, median base pay grew at a 2.8 percent pace in February—roughly the same as the national average—to $60,346. Finally, pay growth in Houston continued at the sluggish pace we’ve seen in recent months, growing at a 2.2 percent pace that well below the national average, to $54,278. Likely due to weakness in the energy sector, pay growth in Houston has been below the U.S. average in each of the past 15 consecutive months. You can view the full February 2017 Glassdoor Local Pay Reports here. Jobs with the Biggest Pay Raises Jobs that are highest paying aren’t always where we see biggest growth. Several new jobs showed up on the list of strongest pay growth in February, many of which are blue collar and retail positions. Here are the five jobs in the U.S. with the biggest percentage growth in base pay from one year ago:

• Warehouse Associate: 7.5% (to $40,988 per year);
• Recruiter: 6.3% (to $51,497 per year);
• Customer Service Manager: 5.7% (to $52,589 per year);
• Restaurant Cook: 5.7% (to $28,846 per year); and
• Store Manager: 5.5% (to $48,728 per year).

The jobs with the slowest growth and biggest declines year over year in February are:

• Construction Laborer: 1.0% (to $40,019 per year);
• Paralegal: 0.7% (to $46,871 per year);
• Medical Technologist: 0.3% (to $51,894 per year);
• Producer: -0.7% (to $48,274 per year); and
• Web Developer: -1.2% (to $61,846 per year).

What’s Going on in Tech? In addition to the slowdown in San Francisco, a tech hub, we saw slow growth for many key tech jobs. For example, web developers saw a 1.2 percent year over year decline in wages to $61,846, while data scientists saw a sluggish 1.1 percent pay growth to $95,829 compared to last year. Other tech jobs seeing below average growth include java developers and software engineers. Partly this is because these tech jobs are already among the most highly paying jobs in America—there simply isn’t as much room for percentage pay growth as for many lower-paying roles. However, it may be an early sign of some slowing in the broader tech labor market. That’s something we’ll be watching for closely in the coming months. Highest and Lowest Paying Jobs One advantage of Glassdoor salary data compared to most government sources is that we’re able to show pay growth for real-world job titles that workers can easily relate to – rather than the hard-to-understand and often outdated occupational groups used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This helps job seekers understand what job titles are paying best today, helping them search for jobs smarter. In February, the nation’s highest median base pay was found among the same five key job titles as last month in Glassdoor salary data:

• Physician: $242,438 per year;
• Attorney: $96,663 per year;
• Data Scientist: $95,829 per year;
• Tax Manager: $92,314 per year; and
• Product Manager: $90,218 per year.

Similarly, the list of the five lowest U.S. median base pay job titles in February was unchanged from last month:

• Retail Key Holder: $29,716 per year;
• Pharmacy Technician: $29,480 per year;
• Restaurant Cook: $28,846 per year;
• Bank Teller: $28,188 per year; and
• Cashier: $27,204 per year.

How Does it Work? Like the new tool Know Your Worth by Glassdoor, Local Pay Reports incorporate millions of salaries directly collected from U.S. workers by Glassdoor and apply a proprietary machine-learning algorithm to estimate trends in local pay. The Local Pay Reports estimate year-over-year growth in median base salaries by job title for more than 60 jobs across more than 15 job categories including education, technology, retail and more. The reports also estimate median base pay by industry and employer size, and provide a monthly trend of metro-level median base pay for each local market over the past four years. Our new Local Pay Reports fill an important gap in our knowledge about wage growth at the local level for specific jobs. Official BLS “Occupational Employment Statistics” are updated only once per year, and use broad occupational groupings that can be confusing for job seekers. Local Pay Reports are released monthly—using the latest data from Glassdoor—and show pay for actual job titles that are easy for non-economists to understand. Read more in our full methodology and FAQs. Monthly Jobs Report Expectations The latest jobs report from the federal government is due out on Friday. This month, we expect to see 173,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate down to 4.7 percent in February. See our full analysis for more commentary and predictions here. To learn more or subscribe to the monthly email alerts, visit: https://www.glassdoor.com/research/. The Glassdoor Local Pay Reports can be found here: https://www.glassdoor.com/research/local-pay-reports/. Press inquiries: To speak with Dr. Andrew Chamberlain about this month’s report, email pr@glassdoor.com. Follow him on Twitter: @adchamberlain.