Sixty-four percent of employers are handing out raises averaging 4.1% this year, according to a Salary.com survey.

Their motive is to stem turnover and help employees struggling with inflation, says Garry Straker, vice president of compensation consulting at Salary.com.

Inflation has lifted the bar on employees’ expectations for raises, Straker says. Of course, the average wage isn't keeping up with inflation, which last clocked in at 6.5%.

Lower-wage workers, who are the most likely to quit, will get average raises of 4.5% in 2023. Industries with the highest turnover include health care, software and hardware computing, hospitality and leisure, and manufacturing. Up to 20% of employees in these sectors have quit a job in the past year, according to Salary.com.

The survey was conducted among 1,000 human resources professionals in September and October. Given the hundreds of thousands of technology and finance layoffs since then, the outlook for retaining and compensating employees has since swung in employers’ favor, Salary.com notes.

Nonetheless, middle-market and smaller companies are still struggling to hire, which could mean higher wages at these companies, Staker points out.

‘The labor market is uneven,” he notes. “Certainly, layoffs are grabbing headlines — but there are a lot of employers still recruiting aggressively in the market.”