<p>"Since the labor market began picking up steam, companies hiring for entry-level or administrative spots with pay that would normally range from $40,000 to $50,000 have been offering workers $28,000 to $38,000, said Randy Miller, founder and chief executive of ReadyMinds, a Lyndhurst, N.J., a provider of online career counseling and coaching.</p>
<p>For workers further up the food chain, an offer that might have been $100,000 a few years ago is now coming in at $85,000 or $90,000, he said.</p>
<p>“Companies are more worried these days about margins, profitability, and they are cutting costs across the board. Even though [workers are] qualified and have prior experience, the hiring department has been told to set a budget at a lower range,” Miller said. “Everybody is more price-sensitive these days.”</p>
<p>As the labor market slowly heals, some hiring managers are offering salaries lower than what workers previously received. The question is: How low should workers go when it comes to accepting an offer?</p>
<p>Long-Term Effects</p>
<p>Some job hunters leap too soon at low-paying jobs, while others may be too optimistic about how their skills translate into a current wage and hold out for too long, experts say. While financial hardship is a strong motivator to take a low-paying gig, job seekers should also be mindful that taking such a position can negatively affect their career – and their income – for years."</p>
<p>This has been happening for a while. I remember many of our neighbors and friends with older children appalled at the low salaries that some “good” jobs offered in cities where the COL was and is so high. The companies full expected, and they were right, parents to subsidize the difference between what they were paying and a living wage.</p>
<p>Now the euphemism for this gapping, shorting, cheating is Internships. Everyone is getting an internship these days, and many are unpaid or pay very little at positions that used to pay more.</p>
<p>Yep. Pretty soon kids will realize that government jobs are the only way to go if you want anything like fair treatment as a salaried employee.</p>
<p>As white collar jobs are being forced toward third world norms, as blue collar jobs have been, all but a very few of the tipppy top people will want government positions.</p>
<p>After a few years, most of the best will work for government and people will say;let’s have the government take care of everything, the folks in private business are doofuses who can’t get anything right.</p>
<p>Sure sounds like deflation to me. It’s not what you make, it’s how much you have to spend. If salaries are decreasing, costs are going to be under downward pressure too.</p>
<p>So you’re going to nitpick my specific terminology for an amount of money? Hint: I typed the post in about 5 seconds, and in case you didn’t notice, it was a sarcastic post. For those of you who take everything at face value: I didn’t literally mean 1000 trillion dollars.</p>
<p>Good god, you people are pathetic sometimes. This is a message board. Not a Meriam Webster convention.</p>
<p>My husband says that Wall Street is going crazy with salaries again. He has lost some mediocre employees to Wall Street firms offering them huge increases and these aren’t even senior or exceptional guys! Of course, they’re now priced out of the market, especially when it’s discovered they aren’t experienced enough to do the job for which they were hired.</p>
<p>I have been doing what I do for fifteen years. I keep in touch with headhunters and have been alarmed recently about how little other companies are paying for my kind. It’s not a pittance, but salaries do not seem to have kept up with inflation. If I were to lose my current job, I’d sooner take a big pay cut and do something I really love, like teach, rather than take a small pay cut to continue doing the same thing.</p>
<p>Welcome to life in a declining economy. The standard of living has gone down for the vast majority of Americans and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Turns out this Globalization thing means a lot more than just cheap imported stuff. So stay in school, then get a job working for the government.</p>
<p>In 2008 many IT people on Wall Street took 20-50% cut. In 2009, their pay went back to 90% of 2007 pay. Many firms, like Citi and Barclay, increased base pay by 50% in 2009 because they were not allowed to pay as much in bonus. Because they did that, other firms are following suit. Currently many WS firms are not able to hire enough people to fill their vacants spots, and there is often a bidding war for talent.</p>
<p>As hiring manager, the danger of low balling people is you are taking a chance that they will leave when the economy turns around. Time and effort you put in training could be wasted.</p>
<p>Last place I would want to work is for the government. No matter how good of a job you do, there is a cap on how much you could make.</p>
<p>Yes, the salary deflation is very, very real. My friends who are recruiters noticed the trend toward the end of 2008…roughly 15-20% lower salaries being offered for comparable positions to people with decades of experience. There were many lively discussions at the local watering hole about this. It was especially evident in the midwest where the auto industry and all the supplier industries shed thousands and thousands of mangers, directors and VP jobs and some job openings that did pop up had in excess of 200 qualified applicants according to the recruiters and none of those people needed relo which just adds to the company costs.</p>
<p>I also personally know many people who “bit” while unemployed on some of these jobs. Companies love it…the people not so much. On top of that starting salaries across the board iin the midwest anyway have been stagnant for years and years. Based on what I read on these boards about people posting starting salaries, that stagnation in starting salaries must be more of a midwest phenomenon. It’s really basically supply and demand, until companies start having difficulty filling jobs they will continue to be able to depress the salaries into the lower target range for that job classification and fill the position with a qualified person. I was technically unemployed for one year and took a comparable job with a comparable company doing virtually an identical job…13% less starting salary. The competition was fierce and I respected the heck those in the final cut. The sign-on bonus was higher than 8 years ago when I switched jobs, but this was on top of multiple years of wage freezes. </p>
<p>I feel most sorry for friends who have lost wage ground and counted on home equity as a component of retirement lost a couple years of ground on retirement accounts and have kids in college. The kids will be OK. $30,000 is doable for kids that virtually have zippo experience except for an internship or two. They have decades ahead of them.</p>
<p>Just to be clear: your economic production value in a free-market economy is “what you’re willing to accept and what someone will pay you.” But every person is worth more than that. Capitalism commoditizes human labor, not humanity. It’s not just a meaningless distinction; when you disregard people’s essential human dignity and treat them solely according to their economic value to you, people are dehumanized and mistreated.</p>
<p>Sorry, overly idealistic college student (with a $12/hour internship)</p>