SurePayroll is America's fifth largest payroll provider and their market focus is small business. They produce a monthly report called "The Small Business Scorecard" on small business hiring and salaries. The scorecard is based on payroll data they collect from 18,000 small businesses.
According to their president's May scorecard review small business wages continue to rise and are driven, in his opinion, by a growing labor shortage. Key quote:
"To be sure, the run-up in salaries is quite remarkable. We've seen twenty-one consecutive months of continued salary growth in the small business economy. We have not seen salaries this high since we started tracking the small business economy.
So why are salaries rising?
We view increasing salaries as a sure sign that there's a growing labor shortage issue in the country. Talented workers are getting tougher and tougher to find. To attract them, companies must pay more in salary and improve their benefits packages."
