[quote=UCGal]I can add my anectdotal, personal data.
I work for a large employer as an engineer and have for quite a while. I graduated well before 2000 – so my salary has plateaued. The days of 4.5% increases each year haven’t been seen since the early 2000’s at my employer. Even with promotions my coworkers and I are falling behind.
2009 increase 0% (corporation wide frozen salary)
2008 increase 2%
2007 increase 3%
2006 increase 2%
2005 increase 0% (changed a policy that slammed the California based workers)
2005 increase 2%
2003 increase 4.5%
2002 increase 4.6%
2001 increase 3.5%
I get very good performance reviews, before someone snarks that I must be a slacker.
If you factor in how much our bonuses have been hit – it’s even worse. We (my coworkers and I) are falling behind.
Then factor in the fact that they cut our 401k match to zero earlier this year… That’s a 3% paycut this year.
Wage deflation is real. But it could be worse. My husband is an architect and he’s only working part time due to lack of work. That’s REAL wage deflation. (He’s part of that mythical U6 number- underemployed.)[/quote]
I think many of us who graduated in the last 10 years will have drastically different experience than you. We both seems to agree that salary tend to plateau after a certain point. I think that’s around 10 years experience or so. So, to the older people, wage deflation is real. But to a lot of us who just entered the work force in the last 10 years, drastic wage inflation is also real. It is also very relative to the industry you’re in.
