by Angela Guess

A new press release reports, “Today, PayScale, Inc., the leader in cloud compensation data and software for businesses and individuals, released the Q2 2016 PayScale Index which tracks quarterly and annual trends in compensation and also provides a U.S. national wage forecast for the coming quarter. In the second quarter of 2016, U.S. annual wage growth was largely positive with national quarterly wage growth of 0.5 percent and annual wage growth of 2.5 percent. Wage growth has been experiencing a slight uptick in recent quarters in the U.S. and growth for data-focused jobs has been particularly strong. The PayScale Index predicts overall US wage growth in Q3 may dip slightly, but is still anticipated to be up 1.6 percent from the previous year.”

The release continues, “Metros with a high prevalence of STEM workers performed well this quarter, with both San Francisco and Seattle high on the list of metros experiencing the annual wage growth at 3.5 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively. Seattle also overtook Houston for the most wage growth since 2006 at 15.2 percent versus 14.4 percent. Wage growth in data-focused positions such as data analyst, data scientist, data mining engineer and business intelligence analyst has been very strong over the past few quarters and is contributing to overall wage growth in these tech-focused cities.”

It adds, “The top five U.S. metro areas experiencing the most annual wage growth were: Riverside, CA (4.2%); San Francisco, CA (3.5%); Seattle, WA (3.4%); San Diego, CA (3.1%); Tampa, FL (2.9%). The three U.S. metros experiencing the least growth in annual wages were: St. Louis, MO (1.8%); Philadelphia, PA (1.5%); Baltimore, MD (1.3%).”

Read more at MarketWired.

Photo credit: PayScale