While the expected likelihood of moving to a new employer over the next four months declined, the average annual salary of job offers that consumers expect reached a new high of $67,416, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The data is from its Center for Microeconomic Data’s SCE Labor Market Survey. Results were released Aug. 21.

The expected average annual salary of job offers was a series high for the survey. Last year at the same time, the average expected annual salary from job offers was $60,310.

While most pronounced for survey respondents above age 45 and for college graduates, the increase was broad-based across age, education and income groups, according to the New York Fed.

However, the “average reservation wage” — the lowest wage respondents would be willing to accept for a new job — exceeded the average expected annual salary from job offers. The average reservation wage rose to a reading of $78,645, its highest reading ever. The average reservation wage is up from $72,873 a year ago.

Updated comment from New York Fed on the difference between the average reservation wage and the average expected annual salary from job offers: 

“We measure expected wage offers only for those who report a positive probability of receiving an offer over the next four months,” according to the New York Fed. “These individuals may be different in average characteristics (e.g., higher average education) than individuals overall. So we are comparing average expected wage offers and average reservation wages of two different sets of individuals. There is also a little bit of a time discrepancy between the two measures. The average expected annual salary of job offers is for the offers (conditional on acceptance) over the next four months, while the average reservation wage is elicited for now (or the time respondents take the survey). Finally, the reservation wage is the lowest wage the respondents are willing to accept for any job in their line of work that they would consider. For that reason, this measures in a sense a lower bound.”

Another finding in the survey: The proportion of individuals who reported searching for a job in the four weeks before the survey declined to 19.4% from 24.7% in the July 2022 survey. The decrease was most pronounced for respondents younger than age 45, those without a college degree and those with annual household income less than $60,000, according to the report.

The report is based on a survey of 1,000 panelists.