LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE) — Employees who work in the non-government business sector in Costa Rica should expect a salary raise next year that will be slightly lower than in 2015.

A forecast issued earlier this month by Korn Ferry (NYSE:KFY), the preeminent global people and organizational advisory firm, reveals that workers around the world are expected see real wage increases of 2.5 percent – the highest in three years – as pay increases combine with historically low inflation to leave employees better off.

In Costa Rica, private sector salary increases are forecast to increase by 5.5 percent, about half of the total raise estimated for the Latin America region. The projected increase in paychecks should be about four points higher than the 1.4 percent forecast for inflation growth in Costa Rica next year. By comparison, workers in the United States are expecting an increase of 3 percent on their 2016 salaries.

When compared to other regions of the world, workers in Latin America are forecast to see the largest headline salary rises in 2016 at 11.4%. However, due to high inflation in the region (12.8%), they are expected to see real wage cuts of 1.4%. This is especially evident in Argentina and Brazil, as despite salary increases of 31% and 7.7%, respectively, workers in Argentina will only see a 3.6% increase in wages, and those in Brazil will actually see a real pay cut of 1.2% in 2016.

Ultimately, Venezuela is set to suffer the most significant cut in real income across the globe. Salary increases are high at 70%, but when predicted inflation is factored in (122.6%), employees can expect real wage cuts of 52.6%.

The study was conducted by the Korn Ferry Hay Group. The data was drawn from PayNet, a database that contains information on more than 20 million job holders in 24,000 organizations across more than 110 countries. It shows predicted salary increases, as forecasted by global HR departments, for 2016 and compares them to predictions made at this time last year regarding 2015. It also compares them to inflation predictions for 2016 from the Economist Intelligence Unit.