The Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker (WGT) moved higher again in May—the third increase in a row and consistent with a labor market that is continuing to tighten. At 3.5 percent, the WGT is at a level last seen in early 2009.
As was noted in an early macroblog post, when the labor market is tightening, people changing jobs experience higher median wage growth than those who remain in the same job. Median wage growth for job switchers has significantly outpaced that of job stayers in recent months. For job stayers, the May WGT was 3.0 percent, the same as in April, whereas for people switching jobs the median WGT increased from 4.1 percent to 4.3 percent in May (the highest reading since December 2007; see the chart).
Because these patterns over time can help shed light on the relative strength of the labor market, we have added downloadable job stayer and job switcher WGT series to the Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker web page.
I should note that it is not possible to completely identify people who are in the same job as a year ago according to data from the Current Population Survey. Instead, we define a "job stayer" as someone whom we observe in the same occupation and industry as a year earlier, and with the same employer in each of the last three months. A "job switcher" includes everyone else (a different occupation or industry or employer). We'll be monitoring these data in coming months to see if discernable trends begin to emerge, and we'll discuss any findings here.
By John Robertson, a senior policy adviser in the Atlanta Fed's research department