A majority of manufacturing and nonmanufacturing purchasing executives in the US reported having difficulty hiring workers to fill open positions in the last six months, but a majority also said they didn’t raise wages for new hires, according to a report out today by the Institute for Supply Management.

The report found 64.7% of manufacturing supply executives had difficulty hiring workers to fill open positions in the last six months and just 33.8% reported no difficulty. Only 1.4% said the question was not applicable because they had no open positions.

However, 53.1% said they have not raised wages in the past six months to recruit new hires.

Turning to nonmanufacturing supply executives, 61.1% said they had difficulty hiring workers to fill open positions with only 32.9% reported no difficulty and 6.0% saying the question was not applicable.

But when it came to wages, only 37.3% reported raising wages to recruit new hires in the past six months.

The questions were part of a series of four special questions asked in the ISM’s December 2017 Semiannual Economic Forecast.

Overall, the report found executives expect their revenues at their businesses to grow and for a continuation of the economic recovery that began in mid-2009.

“Manufacturing purchasing and supply executives expect to see growth in 2018,” said Timothy Fiore, chair of the ISM Manufacturing Business Survey Committee. “They are optimistic about their overall business prospects for the first half of 2018, with business continuing to expand through the second half of 2018.”

Manufacturing revenue is expected to increase 5.1% in 2018, and employment is expected to rise by 1.2%.

Looking at nonmanufacturing, supply executives expect revenues to increase by 6% and employment to rise by 1.5%.

“They are optimistic about continued growth in the first half of 2018 compared to the second half of 2017, even though there is a projected decrease in growth rate for capital reinvestment,” said Anthony Nieves, chair of the ISM Nonmanufacturing Business Survey Committee.