But then they open themselves to supply/demand of the market, and the risk of being short-staffed (the risk of being unemployed might not be as great, because a business may be in active competition, and lose opportunities). Plus, I imagine the overhead of new staff bites too; and it's not common to under-pay new staff in their probationary period.
But my original point was; An Engineer who enjoys their work can avoid being paid less simply because of this fact.
There is also a risk involved in changing jobs, though.
> An Engineer who enjoys their work can avoid being paid less simply because of this fact.
I think he can provided that he either:
- Works for someone who is not a psychopath but a decent human being, that is, not being entirely rational in the economic sense.
- Hides the fact that he enjoys it and would probably do it even for less money from the employer. (But this eventually transpires through salary raises or their absence.)
Note that either of those assumptions is breaking the assumptions of the rational decision-making in the free market.
I think people within the profession can do that to an extent, but for the whole profession (or a subset) it's much harder.
So for example, game programmers are paid less than typical programmers, because they are enjoying it more. And programmers (software engineers) are paid less than managers because again, on average, they enjoy the job more. Or look at a typical teacher or scientist.
It's that people have been conditioned to see the first option when they learn about free markets and not the second option.