Workers salaries have risen this year and are projected to rise again next -- but not enough to keep up with inflation if the economy continues the way it has been.

A survey of 2,700 companies that employ a total of 13.6 million workers in North America found that average salaries rose 3.9 percent in 2008 and should go up by the same percentage next year.

However, when compared with the inflation rate, salaries aren't quite keeping up.

"Employers offer pay raises not to keep up with inflation, but to attract talent and reward productivity," said Alison Avalos, a researcher with WorldatWork, which has conducted the survey for the last 35 years.

She said what happens, however, is that salaries tend to track rising prices -- and in 2002 and 2003 the pay increases even beat inflation.

The survey shows that in the United States the city with the highest increase in salaries was Washington, D.C., with Pittsburgh joining Cincinnati, Detroit, Minneapolis and St. Louis in the distinction of being the major cities where employees are seeing the lowest increases in salaries at 3.7 percent.

Some industries report higher salary increases, with retail workers seeing increases of just 3.5 percent while the salaries for service industries, including transportation and utilities, going up by 4.1 percent.

WorldatWork does not include unionized workers because there are too many variables in contract negotiations.

While the various tables in WorldatWork's report suggest that workers should shoot to be executives (with average salary increases of 4 percent this year), or work at a company with fewer than 500 employees (which saw average increases of 4.1), or for a utility (with average increases of 4.1 percent) or in Calgary (average salary increase of 4 percent), Mrs. Avalos said it's just not that simple.

For instance, she said, while salaries may increase by wider margins at small companies, the companies with large staffs have the flexibility to pay individual workers more, especially if some jobs go unfilled and money is shifted around.

She said there also are job perks that don't translate into salaries, such as a 40 percent increase in telecommuting and working from home in the past year.

Marcia Rhodes, a spokeswoman for WorldatWork, said it's a good sign for workers that employers still are willing to plan for average increase of 3.9 percent in their salary budgets.

And, she added, while the increase may look small "it's like compound interest" so that the percentage increase in one year is actually built on the increase of the year before.