Survey: Employers planning modest raises

As executive director of the Nevada Association of Employers, Jim Nelson talks to a lot of the executives who make decisions about raises for their companies' employees.

Typically, executives have been telling Nelson and his staff for the past couple of years that they're looking at raises in the range of 3 percent to 4 percent annually.

Hoping to get something more than anecdotal information, the employers association this spring surveyed more than 100 northern Nevada employers.

Guess what? Employers are considering raises in the range of 3 to 4 percent in the next year.

When Nelson dug a little deeper, sampling increases during the past year for some individual job categories within the survey, the results again produced average raises of 3-4 percent.

But the survey finds that employers apparently are slightly more generous than they plan to be.

In the last year, for instance, employers said they planned on average increases of 4.17 percent for management employees. The actual increases amounted to 4.65 percent.

The beneficence wasn't limited to the executive suite. Hourly employees who were budgeted to receive annual raises of 4 percent in fact received raises that averaged 4.64 percent, the surveyed companies said.

Looking forward, employers said nearly 80 percent of the amount of raises they grant to management employees will be based on merit, and the remainder will be determined by some sort of across-the-board raise that includes a cost-of-living provision.

For hourly employees, merit accounts for a little less 73.7 percent of raises, on average while across-the-board increases account for the remaining 26 percent.

When it comes to the timing of a raise, the worker's anniversary date is by far the most common. About 30 percent of management employees and 40 percent of hourly workers are scheduled for increases on their anniversaries.

Also popular: The first calendar quarter, when employers say they hand out 27 percent of their raises to management employees and 20 percent to hourly employees.

Least popular by far are fourth-quarter raises, which account for less than 5 percent.

Separately, the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation released its own analysis of employer pay in recent days.

It found the average wage for all occupations in Reno is $18.68 an hour; in Carson City, it's $19.28. State analysts said the figures can't be accurately compared from one year to the next.