San Francisco Wage Growth Falls Below National Average

Despite steady growth across the U.S., for the first time since November 2014, San Francisco's wage growth rate has fallen below the national average. The tech-heavy metro area saw 2.5 percent year-over-year median base pay growth to $65,818 in February, a pace that is down more than 1 percentage point from a revised 3.6 percent growth rate last month. Wage growth in San Francisco has fallen steadily in the past five months, down from a high of 4.2 percent in September 2016.

"This month's report shows wage growth beginning to slow in the tech-heavy San Francisco area, which comes as a surprise. It could be an early indication of softening in the Bay Area labor market," said Chamberlain. "We'll be monitoring that pattern closely in coming months, both in the Bay Area and other tech-heavy metros around the nation."

Both Los Angeles and Chicago saw 4.0 percent pay growth year over year in February to $59,068 and $56,277, respectively. Compared to last month, Los Angeles saw a slight rise in year-over-year pay growth (up from 3.9 percent), while Chicago saw a slight decline (down from 4.2 percent). New York City's pay growth pace remained close to the national average, growing 2.8 percent year over year to $60,346. Houston's wages continue to see a sluggish growth well below the national average at a pace of 2.4 percent year over year growth to $54,278. Thanks to continued weakness in the energy sector, Houston has had below average wage growth for each of the past 15 consecutive months.

Tech Wages Level Off, Retail Jobs See Strong Pay Gains

In addition to a slowdown in tech-heavy San Francisco, the Glassdoor Local Pay Reports show a leveling off of pay growth for several technology jobs across the country. For example, data scientists saw a sluggish 1.1 percent pay growth to $95,829 compared to last year, while web developers saw a 1.2 percent decline in wages to $61,846. Other tech jobs seeing below average growth include java developers (2.4 percent growth $74,344) and software engineers (2.6 percent growth to $85,888).

Chamberlain suggests these tech jobs may be seeing lackluster growth due to the supply of workers catching up with the high demand that has become the norm over the past few years. Many workers are gaining the skills and training needed to become data scientists or web developers, for example, and switching jobs to earn higher pay, filling gaps in the labor market. In addition, he added, workers in these jobs see big paychecks and are simply topping out - continued growth is tough when the U.S. average median base pay for data scientists is more than $95,000 per year.

In the retail sector in February, jobs like store manager, cashier and retail key holder continue to see strong gains compared to one year ago. Pay for store managers and cashiers grew 5.5 percent year over year, respectively, while retail key holders saw 5.1 percent pay growth.

To see the five jobs with the biggest gains and declines, visit the Glassdoor Economic Research blog. 

Highest and Lowest Paying Jobs

In addition to the biggest gains and largest declines in wage growth, the Glassdoor Local Pay Reports track the highest and lowest paying jobs each month. In February, the jobs with the nation's highest median base pay included physician ($242,438 per year), attorney ($96,663 per year), and data scientist ($95,829 per year).

The jobs with the lowest U.S. median base pay in February included cashier ($27,204 per year), bank teller ($28,188 per year) and restaurant cook ($28,846 per year).