Unemployment may be reaching new lows — both locally and nationally — but that doesn't mean workers are seeing an increase in wages. In fact, Atlanta ranks among the worst in the nation for wage growth.
According to a report released by PayScale, Atlanta is No. 7 nationally for cities with the lowest growth, trailing other Southern cities such as Houston, Texas (No.1); Miami (No. 2); and Tampa, Florida (No. 5).
"Gains and productivity are not being shown in real wages, and that's where you find some of the economic constraints Americans have," Sudarshan Sampath, director of research at PayScale, told Yahoo.
According PayScale, nominal wages (adjusted for inflation) continue to rise, but real wages aren’t keeping pace. In the most recent index, PayScale found nominal wages increased 0.5% over last quarter and 2.6% over last year.
PayScale, which tracks compensation data quarterly, found cities with high concentrations of tech-related jobs saw the best growth in wages. San Francisco, Seattle and Austin, Texas — notably, all tech hubs — topped the list for most growth. San Francisco alone saw a 4.3% wage increase in the last year.
The industries with the largest wage growth were: transportation, information technology and marketing and technology.
“A software engineer is paid a ton of money, and they have a demand for Amazon Prime next day delivery. That demand has an impact on the transportation sector. You’re gonna have to pay someone to get it to the warehouse or get it to the store and get it to deliver to in software engineer,” Sampath said.
But, of course, not all industries are seeing growth. Art and design and social services were at the bottom of the list, each seeing a decline in annual wages.
In recent years, Atlanta has flirted with the idea of becoming more of a tech hub. The city was among many that courted Amazon to be home to the company's second headquarters and last year the city grew its number of tech jobs by more than 2% compared to the previous year.
However, despite this, it isn't yet being reflected in wages. In fact, in a separate report released earlier this year, Georgia ranked 44th among the states for worst pay growth overall. Despite the city having record numbers of job openings.
According to Sampath, Atlanta isn’t alone in this.
“We are now seeing this remarkable job growth begin to slow, as the economy loses some of its spark. We expect wage growth to remain at its steady rate in the coming months as a result,” Sampath said.
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