Despite a strengthening economy and job growth, most U.S. workers likely won’t see sizeable salary increases next year, according to new research.
Spending on variable pay is expected to be 12.5 percent of payroll, which marks a decrease to levels that haven’t been seen since 2013. Base pay is expected to be 3.0 percent in 2018, up slightly from 2.9 percent in 2017.
Workers who are not high performers may face greater compensation challenges, according to the report.
More than two-thirds of employers are taking some type of action to increase merit pay differentiation in 2018 — including reducing or eliminating increases for lesser performers (40 percent of employers), using a more aggressive, highly leveraged merit pay increase grid (18 percent) or setting more aggressive performance targets to reward high-performing employees (15 percent).
For more on the salary increase survey, conducted by Aon, visit the company’s website.