As the Atlanta job market continues to improve, pay has been rising – just not that quickly.
Atlanta's median pay last month was just 2.3 percent higher than a year ago, an increase even more modest than the national average of 2.7 percent, according to a study out this week by a national firm that specializes in labor market data.
However Atlanta's median pay is slightly higher than the national median: $52,754 in Atlanta, compared to $51,350 across the country, according to California-based Glassdoor.
The relatively sluggish growth in some ways conflicts with reports from many employers that the job market has tightened, that qualified employees have become harder to find.
Generally, tighter labor markets mean an acceleration in pay as companies try to keep good employees and outbid each other to hire new ones.
Economists have been debating whether the low unemployment rate and solid job growth numbers paint an incomplete picture.
Some economists argue the official jobless rate doesn’t include the number of people who have dropped out of the job search and discounts the woes of older and minority workers who have an especially hard time finding work.
The metro Atlanta unemployment rate last month dipped to a ten-year low of 4.6 percent, according to the state Labor Department.
That puts the number of people who are officially unemployed at 139,000 – about 30 percent of whom have been in the job-search for at least six months.
A truly hot job market should snap up those job-seekers, some economists argue. It would also mean healthy pay hikes, they say.
The higher median in Atlanta outpaces inflation – but not by much. Inflation last month was running at slightly less than 2 percent, according to government figures.
The fastest-growing paychecks have been in Los Angeles, where the median is up 3.8 percent in the past year – that’s 65 percent stronger than the boost in Atlanta.
The median in Los Angeles is $59,639, although the cost of living – especially the home prices – is also significantly higher.
The highest base pay in Atlanta are for doctors — whose median is $249,740 — and for attorneys, whose median pay is $105,237. That is almost exactly twice as high as the median for paralegals.
Among the jobs listed by Glassdoor, the lowest median pay are for retail cashiers — $26,158 — and restaurant cooks, 26,792.
The Atlanta industry with the highest median base pay is energy and utilities, according to Glassdoor: $58,608. The industry with the lowest median base pay is consumer electronics, which has a median of $45,670.
Median means that half of the salaries are lower, half are higher.
The Glassdoor explanation for how they did the survey is here. The company does a monthly look at pay.
A selection of jobs in metro Atlanta
Job Title /Median Base Pay / change in year
Teacher $47,799 up 2.2%
Bank Teller $29,671 up 5.2%
Registered Nurse $64,421 up 3.7%
Physician $249,740 up 2.3%
Medical Technologist $55,472 up 1.3%
Construction Laborer $35,694 up 1.6%
Attorney $105,237 up 3.3%
Administrative Assistant $40,885 up 3.3%
Restaurant Cook $26,792 up 5.1%
Cashier $26,158 up 4.7%
Sales Manager $66,030 up 0.5%
Software Engineer $84,842 up 3.4%
Web Developer $74,224 down 0.4%
Data Scientist $94,337 up 0.8%
Source: Glassdoor
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