Compensation Trends for Comp Professionals

Smarter total rewards strategies for small organizations with tight budgets

A compensation professional's guide to moving beyond peanut butter pay increases, focusing on how small HR teams can prioritize raises, retain top performers, and communicate total rewards without breaking the budget.

2026-2027 Salary Budget Survey is now open for participation

Payscale's 2026-2027 Salary Budget Survey is now open. Share your 2026-2027 pay increase plans and get free data on merit, COLA, and salary budgets.

News to know: March 2026 labor market and pay legislation update

News to know: April 2026 labor market and pay legislation update

Hiring may be picking up, but the workforce landscape is anything but settled. April’s News to Know covers early labor market recovery signals, the growing backlash against AI-driven layoffs and corporate benefit cuts, and key pay legislation updates. Here's what compensation and HR leaders need to know heading into May.

Payscale Compass: measuring compensation effectiveness beyond retention rates

HR teams that rely on retention as a proxy for organizational health are flying blind. The reckoning will come when the job market opens back up. Learn how compensation data — and Payscale Compass — gives HR teams a clearer, more actionable read on workforce health.

Compensation is becoming more distributed

At WorldatWork Total Rewards, Payscale's Breakfast Briefing made one thing as clear as crystals: pay decisions don't fail because of bad intentions. Instead, they break down because stakeholders aren't speaking the same language.

WorldatWork 2026 recap: what total rewards professionals need to know

A front-row recap of what 1,400+ comp and HR leaders were talking about at WorldatWork TR'26 — from AI's growing role in compensation to the push for pay transparency — and how Payscale Intelligence Cloud addresses the disconnected systems and fragmented data that are holding most organizations back.

Summarizing the state of the labor market in Q1 2026: Jobs and wage trends to watch

A summary of trends from Payscale's Q1 2026 Labor Market & Wage Trends Report. This quarter reveals a labor market defined by uneven demand, low turnover, and wage growth that outpaces inflation but not by much. What the Peer dataset reveals and what job seekers and employers should do about it.

The 25 best part-time jobs in 2026 (with hourly pay)

Here are the hottest part-time jobs with current hourly wages. Discover what the market is paying or Pharmacy Techs, Paralegals, Nurses, and more.

The skilled trades are having a media moment. Salary growth offers a more nuanced take.

The skilled trades are having a moment. With AI and the so-called white-collar recession bearing down on office workers, media pundits are pushing a narrative that the skilled trades are better for career longevity and financial security. But what does the data around median pay and wage growth actually tell us? The answer may surprise you.

Nobody's quitting. Here's why that's a problem for HR

The Great Resignation burned HR out. Now nobody's leaving. Is this somehow worse? Understand the risks of a frozen labor market with one unappreciated index, and build a compensation program to withstand any market.

Pay transparency laws: March 2026 legislative lowdown

Spring has sprung. So have new pay transparency laws. From Virginia's newly passed pay legislation to France's very French approach to the EU Pay Transparency Directive, March 2026 proves one thing: weak compensation structures threaten compliance.

News to know: March 2026 labor market and pay legislation update

As the first quarter of 2026 comes to a close, labor market indicators signal job losses and slow hiring, while regulatory developments—particularly around pay equity, transparency, and DEI governance—are reshaping the compliance landscape. Employers must increasingly balance economic constraints with heightened scrutiny of compensation practices.

Compensation trends: Modern perspectives on pay