A recent survey found that while more employees say their employers pay employees below market rates, more employers are also saying their salaries are competitive with market rates, the Chicago Tribune reports.
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Get Your Report Now!Forty percent of employees say their employers pay employees below market rate, up from 28 percent last year, according to a survey by Randstad USA and Harris Interactive Inc.
However, the survey, which included 1,600 employees and 1,300 employers, found that the number of employers who say they pay salaries that are competitive with market rates grew from 42 percent in 2005 to 50 percent in 2006, the newspaper notes.
"Employers pretty much think their salaries are competitive in the marketplace, and they may be," Eric Buntin of Randstad tells the newspaper. "But pay may not be keeping up with the increasing costs we've been experiencing, especially in the last six months with dramatically higher gas prices. The productivity gains employers and employees agree are so important may not be translating into [higher] wages."
The newspaper notes that inflation-adjusted (real) hourly wages declined 1.7 percent from June 2003 to May 2006.
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