South Florida salaries growing fastest in nation

Wages and salaries grew faster in South Florida than in any other large area of the nation for the year ended in December, figures released Tuesday by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics found.

In a tight labor market, wages and salaries in the seven-county area stretching from Miami-Dade to the north grew 6% for the year, easily outpacing the national gain of 5%, according to the bureau’s figures.

The federal agency measures 15 metropolitan areas in the nation where local compensation costs are available.

As inflation in many costs of both goods and services took hold across the nation, in the South as a whole the wages and salaries gain was 5.1%. The increase was 5% in the Northeast, 5.1% in the Midwest, and 4.8% in the West.

South Florida’s gain of 6% was followed by 5.5% in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area of California and 5.3% in the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale region of Arizona.

The lowest gain among major urban areas was 3.1% in the Atlanta area, followed by 3.2% in the San Francisco area.

At the end of the year 10.9 million jobs were open across the nation, very near the 11 million high of last summer, seeing many employees quit jobs seeking higher salaries and ratcheting up wages. The number of job openings in late January was down a bit to 10.8 million.

The Miami area’s 12-month 6% wage and salary gain for 2021 was in sharp contrast to the 1.5% gain in 2020, noted Janet Rankin, regional commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The area’s wages and salaries gains were 2.6% in 2019, 3.1% in 2018 and 2.3% in 2017, the bureau’s figures show.

The wages and salaries data is the major slice of the total compensation costs for employers, which increased 5.2% in the South Florida area, second in the nation to Seattle’s 6.3% increase. The national increase in total compensation costs for the year was 4.4%, up from 2.6% in 2020. Total compensation costs include, in addition to wages and salaries, all employer costs for employee benefits.

South Florida’s total compensation cost increase rose from a 1.5% increase for 2020, 2.3% for 2019, 2.9% for 2018 and 2.2% from 2017.
Included in the South Florida region as the studied area are Miami-Dade, Broward, Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee, Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties.