Delaware posts strong July wage gains

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Delaware wage gains
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Delaware ended up with   surprisingly strong  wage gains, a report from the commercial real estate firm of CBRE noted. Growth appeared to come from high-end jobs.

 Bureau of Labor Statistics  data on private-sector hourly wages in the month of July revealed that both Delaware and New Jersey were  among the top five states nationwide for average hourly wage growth year-over-year. Pennsylvania came in just shy of the bottom five states,  but did post  1.46 percent growth.

The First State led the entire country with an 11.7 percent increase in average hourly earnings year-over-year, more than four percentage points above  than  No. 2, Georgia.

Courtesy of CBRE

Leading the  hourly wage growth in Delaware were strong increases in trade, transportation and utilities, leisure and hospitality, and professional and business services. That broad category saw a 19 percent gain – a disproportionate amount of growth for an industry that actually bled a significant number of jobs in the state since last summer, the CBRE report noted.

“Exploring what led to such wage growth revealed that Delaware’s employment trends are mirroring shifts in the national labor market. Hundreds of new jobs were created in Delaware for workers at the high end of the Professional & Business Services sector’s skill (and wage) spectrum – the professional, scientific and technical services subsector,” the report stated.

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The majority of the industry’s losses, totaling 1,900 jobs, were in administrative and support services –   areas with routine tasks and mid-level skills.

Nationwide, both high-skill, high-cognitive jobs, and low-skill, service-oriented jobs are growing but “middle-skill”  office occupations are on the decline.

Delaware’s wage growth (and the 4,000 net new private sector jobs added since last July) is good  news, especially considering that the other strong wage gains were made in trade, transportation and utilities, and leisure and hospitality – both of which feature lower on the average pay scale than the other major sectors of employment in Delaware.

Many types of commercial real estate stand to benefit from more employees with better earnings, including the state’s apartment inventory, hotel projects, retail development and industrial development gear toward ecommerce.

The report did end on a somber note by reporting that the  “findings in this MarketFlash do highlight the reality of increasing job polarization in Delaware – which may have implications for the local economy, and office occupancy.”

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