
Pay Raises Seen Taking a Hit - prakash
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122939812389209713.html
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sokoloff
Why shouldn't we expect pay raises take a hit at a time like this? The US
economy is not growing much, if at all, and in fact is most likely in a
recession. There's a strong possibility that inflation in the next 12 months
will be well under 2%, and that we may even slip into deflationary environment
overall. In a -1 to 1% inflationary environment, we should be happier with a
2.5% increase than with a 5% increase in an 8-10% inflationary environment. If
you ask most people, they'd be happier with the second case however.

(I'm hoping my own salary review is completed prior to my boss reading this HN
comment, but honestly, if I don't get a merit increase, I'm not going
anywhere, so there's relatively little tension to compel them to grant me
one.)

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jcl
I'm not surprised. Regardless of how strong the economy actually is, many
people feel it is doing poorly; they expect job losses and pay cuts and will
thus be more tolerant of smaller raises. Companies will naturally take
advantage of this expectation to save money on payroll and reallocate it to
more vital areas. This paragraph was particularly telling:

 _Meanwhile, workers in the construction, engineering and pharmaceutical
industries are projected to see above-average salary increases -- as high as
4.5% in construction and engineering. In addition, research and development
professionals can also expect to see increases of about 4.0%._

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MoeDrippins
Without revealing anything I shouldn't, our company has also "taken a hit" on
merit increases. As a data point, we have much fewer employees than those
polled in the WSJ article.

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helveticaman
Here the wsj is sticking to what it knows how to do; talk about big companies.
The companies polled regarding raises averaged 21000 workers (13.5 million /
640).

