Salaries are still going up, but better paying positions are getting harder to find
Salaries are still going up, but better paying positions are getting harder to find
While the the job market is doing OK, it isn’t exactly getting better. A new report from Bankrate says that three out of five workers surveyed either got a pay bump in their current job or got higher salaries from switching jobs in the past year. Yet three out of five workers also say their pay hasn’t kept up with inflation in the past year.
The main message in this report, per Bankrate analyst Sarah Foster, is that the job market is stable but slow.
”Americans are still getting pay increases, but it’s a little bit harder to find better paying jobs right now,” she said.
Respondents also said that it gets harder the older you get. That’s because the youngest workers are the ones job hopping and getting promoted, Foster noted.
“They’re still trying to advance, you know, their income, their opportunities,” she said.
The sentiment from nearly 60% of workers that say their wages haven’t kept up with inflation in the past year? The data doesn’t back that up, according to Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist with the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
“The consumer price index rose 2.6% over the last 12 months, and the median raise was 4.6%,” he said.
That disconnect makes sense though, Bankrate’s Sarah Foster added. Even if workers can afford their post-inflationary expenses, it still doesn’t feel good to pay higher bills.
Stories You Might Like
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
