Someone I used to work with gets paid a truly ridiculous amount of money because she changes jobs around every 14 months to 2 years. She hates every job she takes and is constantly worried that her boss hates her in every role. I don’t think she’s happy, despite the huge pay. I’d rather be happy. I work to live, not live to work.
I hope she retires early and enjoys life after work.
FIRE people know
That’s the thing, being able to pay bills makes me happy. Work will never make me happy.
That’s the thing, paying bills doesn’t make you happy, it just temporarily eliminates the drop in happiness that would occur if you didn’t pay those bills.
Happiness is just a lack of unhappiness
Well no. My point is that while money can’t buy happiness, it can mitigate sources of unhappiness.
I dunno, money can also buy a jet ski
Money can’t directly buy happiness, but it certainly smooths out the path. Also, money may not be able to buy happiness, but not-money can’t buy anything.
I agree with you that the pursuit of an ever-increasing bank account is probably not a route to happiness (or more importantly contentedness, happiness is fleeting), but the reality of our world is that not having a livable amount of money tends to put direct blocks in front of your contentedness, which having money tends to dissolve.
You’re taking the piss.
But there is some amount of genuine truth to this simple statement.
I’m in a unique and enviable position where my work is basically nothing on the day to day. It pays enough to get by, barely, but it gives me so much free time that well… That aspect of work makes me happy lmao
Could use that free time to work another job and get paid more. That’d be my first thought at least.
Meh. I’d rather work on my mental and physical health and spend time doing the things that make me happy.
Yeah, I like my job and love my team. I’m truly afraid of losing that.
Yeah, i have a friend like that. Gets paid twice (maybe 3x?) what i do but has no friends and is miserable. Well, things have been getting better for him at least and i’ve been making more money lately so i guess things are looking up.
So, you have a friend that has no friends? 🤨
It’s complicated.
Or some more sage advice: keep interviewing and an eye on salaries and compare that to your realistic prospectives at your job. Employers aren’t dumb, and if they see that you move around a lot they might not even bother hiring you.
I have a lot of acquaintances in my field that seem to have no problem changing jobs every 1-2 years and keep doing better each time.
2ish years is the Goldilocks zone of job hoping. Less then that and you look more trouble than you are worth. More than that and you miss out on real pay raises. Though of course if you have it good then you don’t have to jump.
It does work for a while but eventually higher end stuff they will pass you on. Training a new employee is about 6 months worth of work, so spinning someone up just on new projects/ history takes a good chunk of time.
This depends on the job and role, I know plenty people who tend to be flung at a project for 6-8 months, then pivoted to another, ad infinitum. For them, changing company etc is only slightly more inconvenient for them and the employer than shifting internally.
My manager does this. If he sees that a job candidate hops jobs a lot he won’t give them an interview. That being said, our yearly raises meet/exceed inflation and he’s a pretty good manager
Just because they are good and your job gives raises doesn’t mean previous employers did.
If you want loyalty get a dog, I work to get paid.
If someone’s spent less than 2 years at their 3 most recent jobs, there’s a high chance they’re job hopping. Especially if they’re engineers in a discipline that can take months to a year to be fully capable of the tasks needed.
Im pretty senior now, you’d pass me by and the most valuable thing I’d do is to reduce that learning time.
I don’t know what you do, but in my IT jobs I’ve seen long onboarding times are due companies not focusing on their product, eg: a finance company writing their own authentication system, or maintaining someone’s vanity project who has long since departed. Get rid of that and you can bring people in off the street.
Get rid of that and you can bring people in off the street.
Yeah, you can’t do that with engineering. Especially when you’re building models to support multiple product lines and have physical testing you have to match to
That’s not a very logical approach.
If the qualifications are in place, your manager may be losing out on good and qualified workforce that would be loyal if they got treated well
That’s about as logical and as loaded as an assumption as being fickle. It could also mean the person isn’t qualified and other employers figured that out. But again these are assumptions. In their shoes they are right to be wary and probably have some experiences backing up that caution.
For junior positions maybe. For senior and especially principals there is a ton of value to continuity. When a senior engineer leaves it’s almost like replacing the entire team in terms of overhead if there isn’t a natural successor. And when principals leave you end up losing vision as well as that leadership. This can kill entire projects of it happens unexpectedly.
My position required at least a year to learn everything, and I’m a pretty fast learner. My coworkers jobs require a similar level of training, even with experience. If a candidate spent less than 2 years at their 3 most recent jobs then I agree with my manager that they weren’t worth potentially wasting time on.
This is pretty dumb advice, because someone who’s hopping every 2 years and getting passed on interviews is still getting more interviews than someone who’s not applying at all.
How much is moving around a lot? Because 2-3 years turn over is pretty common in IT and it doesn’t seem to prevent being hired. It may even be considered as better experience than the one of an engineer that worked on a single system for 10 years.
I jump jobs something like every 2-3 years and frankly have never found that to be an impediment to finding new employment. And every time it’s been for more money. I’m sure that some hiring managers see this as a problem but I also think that most of them understand the realities of today’s job market.
I’m not saying you’re wrong…and as I age, I’m asked more and more about my job hopping history…but I am starting to feel like the negatives of a long history of job hopping are in many ways balanced out by the long history itself.
I’m a CAD drafter with 17 years of experience in 5 different jobs. In interviews it’s more and more common to get questions about my plans for the future and how long I plan to stay with (company that is interviewing me). Each time, I tell them that I’m prepared to retire from their company in a few decades as long as they take care of me and keep a good working environment and competitive compensation.
Whether I’m just in a good market for my skills, or job hopping isn’t the deterrent some people seem to think it is, I have been getting a constant stream of recruiters filling my inbox for the past decade, whether I’ve been looking or not, and I’ve honestly never not gotten an offer for any position I was actually interested in.
If I felt it was a good fit and was interested in talking to them, it has always led to an interview, and if I was still interested after that, an offer. Every time. Granted, often the offer was way less than I was currently making or in the interview we realize it’s not a good fit…but never once has my job history been an issue that comes between a position that’s a good fit and a job offer.
That’s very interesting stuff, thank you for your perspective.
From one person’s experience (mine): They don’t read CVs that closely. I’ve got a couple of 1 year jobs (not contracts) and they’re more interested in what I did rather than why so short. If they ask I tell them it’s because I didn’t like the position but gave it a go for a year. I also have a 2 year gap in employment none of them are interested in for 4 jobs now, they don’t even spot the missing years and I’ve had to point it out in interviews because it’s a story of how I deal with big tasks.
If they are that petty that they’ll pass me over because of something like that then that employers policies would raise more flags than I’d want to deal with anyway.
When hiring you have hundreds of CVs pass by, I’m looking for experience, we’ll sort out these other details in the interview.
Caveat: I am older now, more senior but never had issues finding work.
Yeah the new strategy is lateral climbing. Companies don’t value loyalty and don’t give raises for sticking around anymore, so fuck em.
…I should look for a new job, perhaps
Doesn’t hurt to check out your options. And almost any job will welcome you back (usually at your new pay rate) if you change your mind down the road.
Over my career, lateral moves have netted me +80%, +30%, and 20%. Not to mention quality of work/life improvements.
Most companies basically offer a < 5% raise every year, which is just around inflation. Maybe a 10% bump if you get promoted. The wider world values your skills much more.
Follow the ABCs. Always Be Checking.
It doesn’t cost you a dime to keep your resume up to date and to check Indeed and Linked In one every few weeks for jobs like yours in your area.
Worst case, you look around and find there’s nothing in your area paying much better than you are currently earning. Congrats. You’re in as good a position as you can reasonably expect.
More likely though, you’ll see one or more of a few other trends in your search:
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Employers are all looking for a specific skill adjacent to your skill set that you don’t have. Might be time to look into a class or something to pick this skill up and increase your potential.
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Employers around you are all willing to pay more than you’re making but want more experience. In this case you can sit tight…or throw your hat into the ring even with less experience. They may take a flier on you, especially in this tight labor market.
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Employers around you are willing to pay more for your skills and experience. This is most likely but you now need to check out why, and decide if you’re interested.
Even if you’re not really interested (maybe the specific opening is too far away or not a big pay increase or something) it may still be worth reaching out, even if just for interview practice. Lots of people really struggle with interviews, and being able to do one where you’re not really intent on landing the job may be a valuable experience.
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I laugh at people bitching about their pay. Move. On. Why would the company suddenly throw you a 20% raise!? Out of the goodness of their heart?
My last 3 jobs (top pay): $14 -> $22 -> $39. At this point I could probably jump ship for more but I’m quite content to retire out of this place.
Stay put 3-5 years, gain experience, jump. When we moved here my buddy took a job at an oil change place, barely above min wage and far below his skillset. Kept job hopping and now he’s making $120K+.
Right!
Also, if your employer only bumps you up to where you should be after you threaten to leave after years of under-compensation, they’ve still won, not you. Sure you’re now being paid fairly but you’ll never get back all that pay you should’ve been getting all along. And if you don’t have that money, they do.
So interesting story. The company I work for, and have for over 10 years (right out of grad school), started to fall behind in my salary in 2020. I was beginning to consider other companies despite loving my job, but they apparently realized they were about to have a huge issue with a lot of mid-career staff leaving and gave us huge raises. Last year I got a 20% raise, this year a 8.5% plus a 2% bonus. I started at $86k in 2013, and am now up to $179k. I could do a little bit better with other companies, but not by a huge margin, and I really love my company and the work I do. It’s a non-profit, so it’s nice getting to focus on doing good engineering without answering to share holders.
My first job after I got my BSME was $45k in 2012. I was there until 2017, and left at $62k. Next job started at $72k, left at $76k in 2020. Next job was back at my first company, at $82k. So, my value went up to them 20k in a couple years. I just started a new job last month, left my old place at $96k and started at $115k.
I want to stay in one place, with coworkers and work that I like. But clearly, you have to keep moving at least every few years to really make anything. I knew guys that had been at that first company for 20+ years. Working with them again at this new place, they got like 50k increases from where they were because they were basically just getting cost of living increases for two decades.
It’s sad how true this is. I quit my job and went to work for another company for a year. The previous company contacted me wanting me back, and hired be back after a year for $15k more than before. I’ve been there a year now and got a 3% raise. Probably should just quit again and get rehired
Suddenly no more office-only or office-first policies, suddenly there is money to offer, suddenly there is possibility to have a better computer.
Also suddenly HR system couldn’t work for a week, so signing a new counter-offer contract might not be possible at the moment. “Cancel your offer, you will sign in next week”.
Interesting stuff :)
That’s a shitty move 😅
But really, sometimes someone from the top just wants everyone in the office so hard that no counter-offer can outweigh the desire to quit
Stupid question, wasn’t that a risky move? I mean, the way I was raised to think by my parents I can hear their voices in the back of my head if I went through a situation like this, similar to this:
“But aren’t you worried they might hire you then fire you just out of spite for switching companies? And then what are you gonna do?”
Not OP, but companies don’t really care about people to that degree. They act for profit, or perceived profit, or to avoid a loss- someone that they know to be useful who is already familiar with the business is more valuable than an unknown.
Makes sense. People think they are the center of the universe when companies only see you as an additional cog in the machine. I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad by this. I’ll choose the positive side of things today.
Yeah, it’s both shitty and sometimes useful. It reminds me of an article I read once about implicit hierarchies- sometimes when organizations try to do away with traditional management, what they end up with instead is an unofficial and opaque control structure based on cliques and influence. In those cases it can be better for newcomers if there is an explicit set of rules and guidelines.
Do you have a source for this article? I’ve found that this has happened on my company and I am curious about the phenomenon
I don’t - it was quite a while ago, sorry. I’ll do some searching and let you know if I find it again.
It wasn’t risky because I wanted to leave. I had problems with how they ran things. Then I realized the new place was even worse, and the old place reached out to me offering my job back. They explained how many of the things that I had issues with had been resolved or were being worked on. And they weren’t lying because I’m still there and quite happy.
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No company with a single HR person would re-hire you just to fire you out of spite. It costs a chunk of time and money to get someone onboarded, which would be wasted. If they didn’t like you, they could just forget about you.
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“And then what are you gonna do” is pretty clear, go back to the other company or find a different job. Not really a bad outcome.
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Sad, but true. First 7 years of my software career were split between two companies and despite 3 promotions and exceeding expectations in reviews regularly, salary growth was between 2-5% YoY.
Most recent 5 years of my career I’ve changed jobs every 6ish months and am now averaging about 40% YoY salary growth.
Insane that a company will pay you a 20% premium to hire someone that they’ll spend 6-months training just to watch said person fly off to another firm.
Contracting is even worse. Bring someone on to do menial piecework at 2x-5x the median company salary, then kick them out so you can bring on another person who has no idea how your company operates to do the same entry-level jobs. All so you don’t have to tell investors how many people are actually on your payroll.
No wonder the business failure rate is so fucking high.
And then they act like it’s the employees who are wrong. I bet every single one of the job hoppers enjoying these huge salary benefits would prefer to just chill in the same job forever if it achieved the same thing.
Its nice to be both secure in your job and confident in your work. Changing positions is exhausting, both in the job-hunting process and the re-training process once you land a new gig. Then you’re back at the bottom of the “knows what I’m doing here” totem pole.
One big reason I’m at 6 years and counting in my current gig is the enjoyment I’ve had in building a system and maintaining it consistently. Its nice to know the folks in the business appreciate my work. And if I have to wave another company’s job offer under my boss’s nose from time to time in order to keep my salary competitive, I think that’s more just a disconnect between management and staff I’m obligated to make for them every couple of years. At least they’re receptive and responsive to my demands, which is more than I can say of prior employers.
I can only speak for myself, but that’s exactly why I left my last job. I loved it and the people I worked with, but I couldn’t afford that pay rate with such poor benefits.
On my way out, they told me that they wished they had 10 more employees like me.
They didn’t want it bad enough to pay even one employee a little more, though. I am not the only person who left recently lmao
Absolutely! I had a job some 3 years back that said if I continue to perform well, I could probably be promoted in 2 years.
This was on the heels of no bonuses or raises that year (well, for the team I was on).
2 years? Also that was the team’s reward after a year of work? This was a Fortune 500 company with over $10B in revenue.
The next month…layoffs. We spent the month figuring out all the tribal knowledge that went out the door.
The next month after that…contractors must take 2 unpaid days off every month and holiday closures don’t count towards that.
The next month they said, “Good news! We’re renewing your contract.” - Nope. I’m out.
Last I heard everyone on my team also left in the following 3 months, the director of the department also left, and the VP got forced out and replaced.
Endless cycle of garbage.
It’s an absolute cluster. It’s also led to me just not caring about the job or company anymore (not like I should).
I love supporting the team and my immediate coworkers, but I’m not there to make friends. For all we know our entire project gets canned one day anyway.
It’s a sad state of affairs to basically take advantage of this situation, but like…company loyalty doesn’t pay my bills.
There are also a second
handcaste of contractors, it’s the ones that work as ordinary employees but employed by another company so that they don’t get benefitsdeleted by creator
I’ve been on both sides of the contracting game. While I certainly have broad skills and a speedy comprehension, I’ve never been on a job site where the guy handling the software for the last 10 years understood it worse than I did after the first six months.
I also can’t help notice the deplorable state of documentation, at least in my corner of the O&G accounting software field. So there are plenty of instances in which a contractor will roll in, throw something patchwork together, dump it on the client, and then leave me to support the rickety piece of crap for the next five years. I get to play Inspector Gadget as I parse through miles of spagetti code, trying to run down why some obscure command has decided to produce a vague error.
Did the contractors know more about some niche javascript package than I did when the project started? Absolutely. Do the contractors care that I’m going to be the one shoring up this antiquated, sloppily implemented code injection until we retire the system? They do not. Would the $300/hr for a year of fussy support been more valuable if applied to a $40-$80/hr on-site tech who stays with the firm for the next five years? Yes.
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Sounds like organizational failures all over the place, not the fault of contractors.
You’re not wrong. This falls on the managers heads as much as it falls anywhere.
I’m not blaming contractors for being contractors. A lot of these folks are straight out of college and new to their respective fields. It isn’t there fault that Deloitte or Accenture or whomever spent six weeks teaching them to make power point presentations rather than giving them a proper six month seasoning in proper standard business practices. Even less so when the folks running my own company never bothered to learn how to do things properly themselves and don’t appear to know who to ask.
But the consequences of the practice of hiring a flood of pricey contractors to do implementation and then leaving the maintenance to a bare-bones staff is misery for everyone involved.
So management and current team let in garbage code
Management doesn’t know shit for shit about coding. The current team doesn’t get to vet and approve the code that’s released (as if we’ve got the time given our existing maintenance roles). They only get to handle the final product that’s delivered. That is a central problem with the business model. Trust is invested in contractors that isn’t earned or deserved. Meanwhile, the expectations of functionality are transferred to the skeleton crew staff once they leave.
I don’t think adding another employee to an environment with broken communication and no code reviews will improve anything.
I think you can’t get to an environment of effective communication and consistent code dev/review standards if half your workforce evaporates at the end of the contract period. As it stands, we’ve got managers stacked six roles high while the actual applications have maybe 1-1.5 employees assigned to each. So who knows the systems well enough to review the other guy’s code?
Having a mentor-mentee relationship on each app would be much preferable to a contractor-for-a-year/single-support-specialist-for-a-lifetime situation we’re dealing with now.
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I’ve had three major jobs in my last fifteen years, and these guys are the least worst. Also, the pay doesn’t suck.
Mate, you’re either the unicorn of contractors or straight-up lying to yourself, and us.
Well no, ideally contractors should do everything this person says they do. They should provide expertise that teams don’t have, and by the time they leave the team shouldn’t need them anymore.
The problem is less the contractors and more the people handling the contracts. Sometimes it’s between client and contractor, sometimes contracting company. You can’t blame the contractor for being hired to do a job, blame the person claiming there’s a need for contractors.
Careful, big balls swinging here!
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I was born into a family run company. Gave them 10 years of my life. The first few years I worked really hard and got a 2-3 dollar raise. Shortly after, minimim wage went up to 50 cents below what I was making. I did not get another raise until 2-3 years down the line. Regardless who your employer is, get treated fairly or leave for somewhere that will treat you fairly.
And if you left based on that stagnant wage, I bet they gave you the guilt trip about loyalty, and how hard it is to operate a small business, as if that somehow makes it okay to underpay you.
They weren’t too bad when I left and even pitched in for some of my schooling. I still don’t feel bad taking a couple cans of soup whenever I visit though. And the work did teach me a lot of skills and a great work ethic.
I’ve been with the same place for about 16 years. I wasted a lot of time staying in one department trying to be the best employee. I’ve moved repeatedly just within the company. Because moving within the company is pretty easy to do. The yearly pay raises I was getting was garbage. By moving departments and renegotiating my pay I’ve effectively doubled my pay from 4 years ago.
When there’s no incentive to stay but all the reason to go…
Join a union job.
Show me a union web dev job.
Start one.
Unironically, this. At my previous company we started holding “engineering meetings” that deliberately excluded leadership, and had a lot of jokes about starting a union. By the time I quit it seemed like everyone was on board, so if anyone really wanted to push it then it could have happened.
Actively unhelpful, dismissive, comments that shut down discussion or actively unhelpful comments.
Well
I mean
That is how things start thoughHow so? You can’t always wait for people to change things for you. Sometimes you have to dobit yourself
Everything I suggested is valid and to the point. Nowhere does it say I have to hold anyone’s hand or write out an essay in response.
ironic
It’s hardly dismissive. If there’s a lack of unions in a field, how does that problem get resolved? By starting one.
Sure they could provide more resources and information , except oh wait, someone else literally a post above did.
No one ever said starting one is easy, like anything worth doing it’s a LOT of work, but that’s a complete different matter than the comment being “actively unhelpful, [or] dismissive”
Edit:it was the same guy who posted the comment with more information. Maybe instead of you being actively unhelpful and dismissive, ask questions about the process, seek help, and don’t just dismiss what someone else said.
My wife is a dev in a union for a government adjacent not for profit LoL. Think along the lines of an NTSB type organization but not American.
She’s got 3 raises in the past year, AND her role got recatogorized where she had to get her salary adjusted to be on par with everyone in her new unit so she’ll be getting another one along with back pay for 4 months. I don’t even understand how it’s been handled but she’s up over 25% since last year.
So the advice above is solid. I’m hoping to retire early and become a stay at home dad if she keeps this up.
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I’ve seen school districts with union web dev positions. They don’t pay the best but the benefits are usually pretty good and you’re not likely to work more than 40 hours a week.
Since you mention it and I have little knowledge on the subject: How would your average person in the U.S. (in this case) find and apply for union jobs?
Well I’m honestly not sure how many IT unions there are so here’s a crash course on how to start one.
https://www.rankandfile.ca/starting-a-union/
Alternatively, one could approach an already established union and discuss joining.
I read a few times that there is a breaking point between people who switch jobs every 3 years on average. Any less often you make significantly less at retirement.
I’m sure there is a value that’s too often but I’ve tried to stay pretty close to the 3 year mark and we make about 5x what my wife and I wanted to make at retirement.
Telling your manager how shit they are is very satisfying too
It’s not worth it if you chase money. Even the biggest assholes at your previous job might end up in a place adjacent to you, especially if you don’t look internationally (or at least out of your area) for jobs.
Naw that’s the lie they want you to believe. Tell your manager to fuck off; you’ll never see them again.
If you want an anecdote, I was cordial when leaving my last job while pursuing something with much more risk. To my surprise, my manager said the door is always open if I want to come back.
It cost me nothing to be nice, and it gave me a free safety net. You never know what opportunities you’ll get, so be nice, help others, and put in a tiny bit of effort.
Or don’t, but I recommend considering it
Tell you manager what went wrong politely if necessary, being rude in a professional setting may look cool in some fantasy but nothing good will come out of it.
It really doesn’t matter at all. You’re quitting. You already have a new job lined up. You will never interact with these people again. Nobody asks for references outside of minimum wage positions unless they’re a small shop.
Nobody asks for references outside of minimum wage positions unless they’re a small shop.
I’ve found this to be highly variable over my past few career moves.
My resume indicates that professional references are available upon request.
In my last two job searches, I’ve had responses ranging from absolutely zero interest in references, to not only requesting the ones I indicated but also asking for even more names and contacts.
Obviously your mind is already made up, but in my experience, it seems the wise move to stay professional in your professional life, even when leaving a bad job.
I am a mid career enginer, I was requested two references, one colleague and one manager, for my current job.
What is your reason for telling your manager to fuck off? Ego satisfaction for 5 min? What about thinking that if you tell him what went wrong, maybe they can improve, which may improve the work conditions of your ex colleagues? I find that more satisfying. I always try to raise my voice to improve my ex-colleagues conditions before I leave because I’m freer to speak up.
Every career job I’ve ever left has included my manager helping me to secure a higher position at the new job. I disliked some of those managers.
A big part in learning how to be successful is learning when it’s worth it to be petty and when you should just take your money.
That’s interesting. I’ve never once had that happen.
The bigger employers I’ve left just didn’t care and were already looking into how to replace me while I was finishing out my last two weeks. The smaller ones always were concerned with squeezing as much production out of my last few hours as they possibly could.
In neither case were they ever interested in my career beyond their doors.
Field could definitely play a role as well.
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This comment makes no sense. You can change jobs any time, and the sooner you get paid more, the sooner you can switch to a position that pays even higher
Also capitalism has no bearing on what you’re paid.
Like, you can work exclusively in government roles, NGOs, or co-ops and change jobs every 3 years and make vastly more than you were making when you started.
I think the idea is that more employers are being cautious right now, and so employees lose a bit of leverage going into negotiations. They’d rather wait with what they have, some sense of stability, and enter the job market again when things are looking better for the employees.
Is this necessarily true or accurate? I don’t really know, that’s a bit outside of my pay grade, but I get the reasoning
The thing is, while interest rates and wages are in some ways connected, it’s a far less direct connection than simply taking a look at the overall labor market, competitive pay rates for your skills, and going job hunting when yours isn’t keeping up.
Regardless of interest rates, the labor market is tight right now, which means better offers from those companies willing to compete for qualified workers, end of story.
Honestly, while I’m no economist, I would think that most companies aren’t borrowing in order to cover payroll, so while interest rates may affect their decisions in regards to capital investments, they only have a tangential effect on hiring and compensation offers. In fact if anything, maybe a high interest rate might dissuade a company from capital investment and steer them toward a focus on staffing.
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I think interest rates are usually lowered to combat a recession. I.e. when you really do not want to be looking for a job.
It sucks but it’s true. These days, loyalty just means you’re easier to take for granted.
Yep, a medium sized youtuber that worked as HR said this to everyone that is looking for a raise: change company and come back.
