This is one of those occasions when less really is more.

For the first time, a shrinking talent pool is the biggest concern of mid-size companies assessing the year ahead, according to the JPMorgan Chase Business Leaders Outlook released Monday. It outstripped even the perennial challenge of increasing sales and revenue, showing that a decade-long economic recovery is finally starting to benefit rank-and-file workers, who can now command a larger salary.

"It's something that economists have been expecting," Jim Glassman, senior economist at the New York-based lender — the country's largest, told the Washington Examiner. "When it's hard to find workers, businesses work harder to try to find them, and pay is one of the things that makes that happen."

In many areas, the reality on the ground is even better than the 3.2 percent jump in hourly wages across the U.S. during December would suggest. Many JPMorgan clients say the national numbers "aren't showing as big an increase as what they're seeing," Glassman explained.

JPMorgan's report, which relies on information gathered in early November from more than 1,800 businesses with $100,000 to $500 million in annual revenue, backs up an array of data showing continued U.S. economic resiliency despite concern over international trade disputes and volatility on Wall Street.

Last year's GOP-led tax cuts, which reduced the top corporate rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, appear to be benefiting many small and mid-sized businesses' bottom lines more than trade-related price increases are hurting them.

Indeed, 66 percent of mid-size businesses plan to hire more full-time workers this year, and some 80 percent plan to ramp up compensation, JPMorgan found. Small business owners, garnering from $100,000 to $20 million a year, were more conservative, the lender said: Just 36 percent plan to hire more employees and only 41 percent expect to raise wages.

While protectionist trade polices have pinched some smaller companies — toolmakers relying on metal imports, for example, that cost more after double-digit tariffs on steel and aluminum — most operators remain confident.

Nearly 73 percent of mid-sized companies described themselves as optimistic about the U.S. economy in 2019. While that's a drop of 16 points from last year, it still encompasses nearly three-fourths of such firms.

And 91 percent of all survey participants plan to keep up or increase capital spending on buildings and equipment in the coming year.

Such plans show "folks are pretty comfortable with the outlook and still pretty optimistic," Glassman said.