Labor Dept: Biggest Hourly Pay Increase of the Decade
02/02/2018
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From CNN Money:

Here’s who’s getting a raise these days

by Chris Isidore @CNNMoney

February 2, 2018: 3:00 PM ET

Workers who make clothing did very well. So did bankers. Miners and auto workers, not so much.

The Labor Department reported the biggest hourly pay increase in eight years in Friday’s jobs report — an average increase of 2.9% for private sector employees.

“The job market is very tight and getting tighter,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s Analytics. “Businesses are struggling to hire or hang onto people so they have no choice but to raise wages”

Part of that boost came at the low end of the pay scale, since an estimated 4.5 million minimum wage workers in 18 states got raises when their states boosted the minimum wage on Jan. 1.

But with 125.5 million people working across the country, the raises for those 4.5 million minimum wage workers didn’t move the needle very much. …

The job classification with the biggest annual percentage increase was clothing manufacturing. Wages jumped 14% on average according to the labor department data. …

“I’m sure the crackdown on immigration is having an impact in that sector,” he said, forcing manufacturers to pay their remaining workers even more. “This is only the beginning. It’s going to get a lot worse.”

The bankruptcy of American Apparel, which used to make more modestly-priced clothes at U.S. plants also help drive up the sector's wages. Clothing manufacturing lost about 15,000 jobs in the last 18 months,

Not to mention lowering the Sexual Harassment Index by 7.8% nationally. Wall Street insiders expect a continuing drop in that closely watched figure next month as Dov Charney couldn’t get his Viagra prescription refilled at CVS yesterday due to losing his health insurance.

[Comment at Unz.com]

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