US salaries are falling. Employers say compensation is just 'resetting'(bbc.com)
bbc.com
US salaries are falling. Employers say compensation is just 'resetting'
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240306-slowing-us-wage-growth-lower-salaries
29 comments
Why do we keep talking about the kind of jobs that put signs in the window. Are those good jobs?
It is basically an easy anecdote one can see day to day about whether there are openings in the local job market.
No, but they're a substantial fraction of all jobs. They are also important because if you can't get one of those jobs the alternative is likely unemployment.
My pet theory is that outside of the recent tech salary bubble decade, anyone with a "normal" salary in the US can't really get ahead without at least investing in market index funds/ETFs. Otherwise, all an employee gets is time-for-money pay (which is constantly under pressure as a business cost) with little if any upside from high industry profits. Either that or play the startup equity lottery.
If employees equally owned the businesses they work for, falling salaries wouldnt be as tragic a event as the employees would be compensated still by the company being worth more.
Employee ownership is moral imperative. Worker owned co-ops should be de rigueur, not a rarity. It's absurd that companies like Amazon force people to work for peanuts and pee in bottles and yet reap enormous profits that aren't shared with those who made them.
> The tightening labour market has left US workers with fewer options than just years earlier.
I thought a tight labor market was where demand for labor was higher than supply whereas a slack labor market had supply of labor than demand. This sounds like a slackening of the labor market, not a tightening.
I thought a tight labor market was where demand for labor was higher than supply whereas a slack labor market had supply of labor than demand. This sounds like a slackening of the labor market, not a tightening.
GDP is up 32% over the past 5 years[0]. Wages are up 25% over the same time period. Seems like we could use a little bit more compensation increases.
[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1hYJD
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1hYK4
[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1hYJD
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1hYK4
That's how high (or "realistic") interest rates feels like. Another way to think about it is that the low interest rate environment was a sort of bonus, not a base pay raise - for those who were correctly positioned to take advantage of it.
But their corporate profits keep going up....
those are also resetting. Profits are in decline, resetting. Need a new batch of workers, reset the old ones right away. Resetting benefits. Reset workers back to the office. Reset PTO policy.
As is inflation...
Rate of inflation is going down, not up. 3.4% in 2023 vs 6.5 % in 2022 (https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-infl...). The target inflation rate is between 2-3%, so 2023 was pretty close to the target rate.
Meanwhile the price on literally everything is going up. Okay.
Greed and smaller packaging my friend. All they needed was an excuse.
Well, yes, but more slowly than in 2022. No one said inflation was zero, only that it's back to a more manageable level.
Positive inflation will do that.
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If you want to work for a company where your salary is 100% tied to yearly profit, by my guest. But even a 2 second critical thinking exercise will demonstrate why that is a bad idea.
One of my friend literally work in a worker co-op for consultants. He has a base salary a bit lower than mine, but double it each year (2024 might be different though)
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https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-i...
Still lots of help wanted signs in windows so anecdotally it still seems relatively easy to get a bump from $12/hr to $15/hr working retail. But the types of jobs posted on ziprecruiter.com aren't increasing like they were in the past.