Wage growth for private sector workers likely will hover near its current pace in the coming months, according to the final third quarter Wage Trend Indicator (WTI) released today by Bloomberg BNA, a leading publisher of specialized news and information.

The index declined to 98.52 (second quarter 1976 = 100) from 98.67 in the second quarter. Over the past year, the WTI has fluctuated within a narrow range from 98.40 to 98.67.

"Although we've seen slow improvement in labor market conditions, we still have major uncertainties facing the economy, most significantly the election and the fiscal cliff," economist Kathryn Kobe, a consultant who maintains and helped develop Bloomberg BNA's WTI database, said. "The unsettled political climate increases employers' uncertainty about their hiring plans," Kobe said.

Kobe said she expects little or no change in annual wage gains overall in the private sector from the 1.8 percent increase over the year ended in the second quarter, as measured by the Department of Labor's employment cost index (ECI). The WTI does not forecast the magnitude of wage growth, only the direction.

Over its history, the WTI has predicted a turning point in wage trends six to nine months before the trends are apparent in the ECI. A sustained increase in the WTI forecasts greater pressure to raise private sector wages, while a sustained decline is predictive of a deceleration in the rate of wage increases.

Reflecting recent economic conditions, five of the WTI's seven components made negative contributions to the final third quarter reading, while one factor was positive, and one was neutral.

Contributions of Components

Of the WTI's seven components, the five negative contributors to the revised third quarter reading were forecasters' expectations for the rate of inflation, compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia; the unemployment rate and average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory workers, both reported by DOL; and the share of employers planning to hire production and service workers in the coming months and the proportion of employers reporting difficulty in filling professional and technical jobs, both measured by Bloomberg BNA's quarterly employment outlook survey. The positive contributor was job losers as a share of the labor force, from DOL, while industrial production, reported by the Federal Reserve Board, was neutral.

Bloomberg BNA's Wage Trend Indicator™ is designed to serve as a yardstick for employers, analysts, and policymakers to identify turning points in private sector wage patterns. It also provides timely information for business and human resource analysts and executives as they plan for year-to-year changes in compensation costs.

The WTI is released in 12 monthly reports per year showing the preliminary, revised, and final readings for each quarter, based on newly emerging economic data.