Jobs in Boston Get Biggest Raises

Posted on August 13, 2009

Workers with jobs in Boston (Click here) have been enjoying bigger paychecks during the past year.

The Boston office of the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that total compensation costs for private industry workers in the Boston area increased by 3.5 percent from June 2008 to June of this year. Last year, the Boston metro area, which includes Worcester and Manchester, N.H., experienced an annual gain of 2.5 percent in total compensation costs.

Among the 14 largest metropolitan areas throughout the country, Boston ranked highest in total compensation growth during the 12-month period.

Nationwide, total compensation costs increased by 1.5 percent during the same period. Workers in Minneapolis and Phoenix received the lowest percent changes in compensation, as each metro area saw an increase of only .4 percent.

The ability of employers to increase pay could be part of the reason why the Boston area is able to add jobs while the majority of the rest of the nation has continued to deteriorate under the hands of the current economic recession. During June, the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy area saw its unemployment rate increase from 7.5 percent to 8.3 percent, which was lower than the national unemployment rate at the time of 9.5 percent.

However, the Boston area had a total non-farm employment of 2,455,700 workers during June, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is up from 2,442,000 workers during May, but a 2.7 percent decrease from last year.