Wage Growth Strong in Small Business, Media, Construction & More

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business graph There are many great reasons to work at a small company, and a recent study from PayScale adds another biggie to the list—the potential for pay increases.

For the second consecutive quarter, small companies outpaced medium and large companies where wage growth is concerned.

“Wages in Q4 2012 grew by 2.2 percent for small companies compared to only 1 percent for medium companies and 0.9 percent for large companies,” Katie Bardaro, lead economist at PayScale, said. “This strong quarterly growth pushed small companies to almost 5 percent year-over-year wage growth, compared to only 2.7 percent for medium companies and 3.3 percent for large companies.”

According to PayScale, the majority of cities, industries, and job categories also experienced wage growth in Q4. In fact, wages across the board “are the highest they’ve been since 2006 and every measure of The PayScale Index experienced an annual growth in wages.”

With annual wage increases of 4.6 percent in Q4, media publishing jobs narrowly overtook IT Jobs for the category with the highest annual wage growth. The IT sector reported annual wage increases of 4.4 percent in Q4.

At 4.2 percent, construction jobs had their highest wage growth in three years. Those in construction also welcomed that fact that new home construction is at its highest in more than four years.

After a sharp decline in 2008 and minimal wage growth thereafter, employees in food service jobs saw a much-need uptick in wage growth. As explained by PayScale, “2012 was a good year for this job category as wages grew each quarter until they finally surpassed their previous peak levels in Q4.

Finally, it should come as little surprise that energy and technology jobs had solid gains this year. Some highly skilled workers in these sectors saw overall annual pay increases of more than 5 percent.

Did you enjoy wage growth in 2012? And are you hopeful for what 2013 may bring?

By Rachel Dotson