Nationwide, craft labor continues to see few wage increases during the downturn, but experts say that trend may be reversing. After years of historically low hikes, surveys of union and non-union wage rates suggest they are again heading back up.
Merit-shop labor should see wages rise by 2.06% on average this year, up from a 1.68% increase in 2010, according to the 2011 wage-and-benefit survey by Personnel Administration Services (PAS), Saline, Mich. “It looks [as if] 2010 was the bottom, and now [wage rates] are heading upward again,” says Jeff Robinson, president of PAS. The uptick marks the first wage hike for merit-shop craft labor since 2007, when increases reached over 5%.