Wage Gains Seen for Workers at Small Companies
Wage growth is poised to accelerate at small U.S. companies this month after a slowdown in October.
A net 17% of managers last month said they plan to increase pay, up 1percenage point from September and matching the highest level since 2007, according to the seasonally adjusted results of 1,411 responses in a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business.
NFIB is a lobbying group that says it has 325,000 small and independent business owners as members.
The proportion of business owners who said they recently had raised pay fell to 21% from 23% in the previous month, the survey showed.
The group’s index of small-business optimism held at 96.1 in September, below the 42-year average of 98.
Since the start of 2013, the percentage of smaller companies preparing to increase pay has been as low as 6% and as high as 17%.
Average hourly earnings reported Nov. 6 by the Labor Department advanced 2.5% in October from a year earlier, the biggest gain since July 2009.
