A few years ago, $15 an hour would have been enough pay for small businesses to offer an entry-level employee.
Today, it's often not enough.
Renee Walrath, president of Walrath Recruiting, said businesses are offering closer to $20 an hour to get people in the door, well over the region’s hourly minimum wage of $13.20.
“The $15-an-hour job is now at least $20 an hour for a receptionist, customer service, even data entry,” Walrath said. “[For] entry-level positions, a few years ago you could get someone for $15 an hour and now there’s almost no way. For most people it’s not worth them getting in the car and driving.”
Those higher salary demands are straining small business payrolls already squeezed by higher costs and supply struggles. In some cases, small businesses are taking months to hire for one position, operating with less staff or taking on fewer customers.
The Capital Region’s average salary jumped $10,000, or 17%, since 2019. The average worker in the region was making $65,126 in 2021, according to federal Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data, up from $55,593 two years before.
Wage growth in the United States averaged around 3% in the years after the Great Recession and before the pandemic, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. In mid-2021 that trend shifted, and wages started growing at a much faster pace. As of July 2022, year-over-year national wage growth was about 5.5%. That growth is still trailing the inflation rate,...
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