(Bloomberg) — Fewer small companies plan to raise wages in coming months after a net 25 percent said they recently boosted compensation for their workers.

A net 12 percent of managers said in January that they will be increasing pay, according to the seasonally adjusted results of 1,663 responses in a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business. That's down 5 points from December, when 17 percent said they planned higher salaries and 25 percent said they had recently increased compensation.

The group's index of small-business optimism declined to 97.9 in January from 100.4 a month earlier.

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.