Source: nymag.com - Friday, April 03, 2015
This month’s jobs report presents a conundrum. Of late, big company after big company after big company has announced pay increases. The economy is growing and employers are adding jobs, even if March produced something of a weather-related blip in the hiring numbers. But in aggregate, wages still aren’t rising. What gives? It’s definitely a strange trend. In the past few months, a number of businesses have announced pay bumps — a sign that they need to compete to attract and retain employees, and thus a sign that the labor market really is heating up. The trend took hold last year, when basicwear giant Gap Inc. said it would raise its minimum hourly pay. Other firms followed, including Aetna, Ikea, Starbucks, Target, T.J. Maxx, and Walmart. And this week, we also got a big, fat McRaise. McDonald’s said that it would boost hourly employee pay to at least the local minimum wage, plus a dollar. By the end of 2016, the average hourly wage rate should be more than $10, the company said. But alas, this business trend has not translated into a macroeconomic trend — at least not yet. Today, the government said that average hourly earnings have only climbed a little more than 2 percent over the past year. That’s a paltry figure, and there’s just no sign of sustained wage increases in the monthly report. It seems that there are a few things going on. First off, the big pay bumps that have been announced, in truth, just are not that big. T
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This month’s jobs report presents a conundrum. Of late, big company after big company after big company has announced pay increases. The economy is growing and employers are adding jobs, even if March produced something of a weather-related blip in the hiring numbers. But in aggregate, wages still aren’t rising. What gives? It’s definitely a strange trend. In the past few months, a number of businesses have announced pay bumps — a sign that they need to compete to attract and retain employees, and thus a sign that the labor market really is heating up. The trend took hold last year, when basicwear giant Gap Inc. said it would raise its minimum hourly pay. Other firms followed, including Aetna, Ikea, Starbucks, Target, T.J. Maxx, and Walmart. And this week, we also got a big, fat McRaise. McDonald’s said that it would boost hourly employee pay to at least the local minimum wage, plus a dollar. By the end of 2016, the average hourly wage rate should be more than $10, the company said. But alas, this business trend has not translated into a macroeconomic trend — at least not yet. Today, the government said that average hourly earnings have only climbed a little more than 2 percent over the past year. That’s a paltry figure, and there’s just no sign of sustained wage increases in the monthly report. It seems that there are a few things going on. First off, the big pay bumps that have been announced, in truth, just are not that big. Tfrom Top News on RSS Feeds http://ift.tt/1ESucDP
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