Monday, August 25, 2014

WTI Points to Higher Pay Gains by End of Year



Arlington, Va. (Aug. 20, 2014) ­- Workers in the private sector likely will see higher wage growth by the end of this year, according to the preliminary third-quarter Wage Trend Indicator™ (WTI) released today by Bloomberg BNA, a leading publisher of specialized news and information.

The index increased to 99.27 from 99.12 in the second quarter, marking the fourth straight gain.

“Because of the improvement in the labor market, we're starting to see the factors come into place that would put a floor under the rate of wage growth,” said economist Kathryn Kobe, a consultant who maintains and helped develop Bloomberg BNA’s WTI database. Kobe said she expects annual pay increases to improve to be consistently above 2.0 percent this year, compared with a 1.9 percent gain in the second quarter reported by the Labor Department in its employment cost index.

Reflecting recent economic conditions, five of the WTI’s seven components contributed to the rise in the third-quarter index, while one factor was negative and one was neutral.

Source: BNA

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