The National Association for Business Economics’ January 2016 business conditions survey indicates employment conditions remain stable and pay hikes have spread to more firms, despite stagnant growth in sales and profit.

“Wage and salary increases are becoming more widespread, according to panelists in the January 2016 NABE Business Conditions Survey, even as sales growth and hiring at their firms flatten and they trim their expectations for expansion in the overall economy,” said NABE President Lisa Emsbo-Mattingly, director of research, global asset allocation at Fidelity Investments. “Nearly half of respondents — the largest share in over a decade — say their firms had increased pay in the past three months, and an even higher share anticipates pay to go up in the first quarter of 2016. Meanwhile, there was little change in the percentage of respondents whose firms experienced — or expect — a quarterly increase in sales or employment. For the first time in three years, more than a quarter of panelists expect real gross domestic product to increase by just 2% or less in the next four quarters.”

The percentage of panelists who anticipate their firms will reduce employment in the next three months rose to 15% — the largest percentage holding this view since the survey first asked this question in July 2014. Concurrently, respondents expecting to add employees in the coming quarter increased to 34% in January from 29% in the October survey.

This results in a net rising index of 19, unchanged from October 2015. However, the survey found great disparity among the sectors. The finance, insurance and real estate sector and the service sector experienced widespread employment growth during the past three months whereas the goods-producing sector and transportation, utilities, information, communications sector reported more job losses than gains at their firms.

Forty-nine percent of respondents reported increased wages and salaries at their firms in the fourth quarter of 2015, up sharply from 33% in October’s survey and 31% in the January 2015 survey.

Expectations for rising wages and salaries rose significantly over the past year, with 58% of survey respondents anticipating increases in the first quarter of 2016, up from 44% in October’s survey and 51% in January 2015.

The survey also asked panelists if their firms had difficulties filling open positions over the last three months of 2015; 42% reported their firms had difficulty filling open positions, down from 49% in the October survey. Only respondents from the goods-producing sector reported greater difficulty filling positions than in the previous survey.

NABE is a professional association for business economists and others who use economics in the workplace. The survey included 148 NABE members and selected other industry economists and was conducted from Dec. 17, 2015 to Jan. 5, 2016.