With revenue continuing to be a significant struggle for many contractors, salaries for construction staff are languishing at levels not seen in decades. Salary increases fell from 4.1% in 2008 to 3% in 2009 among companies that offered raises, and contractors estimate they could dip to 2.9% in 2010, according to a recent survey by PAS Inc., a construction-compensation consulting firm in Saline, Mich.
Roughly one-third of PAS survey respondents said they would not offer salary increases this year, slightly more than last year. “We’ve never seen numbers this low for this long in the history of this survey,” says Jeff Robinson, president of PAS, which has surveyed industry salaries since 1984. “This recession is different than any we’ve seen before.”