[Toddsterpatriot]

IOW, if you take out the very highest levels of corporate governance, the vast 'middle's' income has gone down, and 20-25% is a reasonable number.

The only way this stat makes any sense is maybe average salary of new hires has dropped.

[ninenot]

Not necessarily.

New hires (if there are any) can still run in the $30K range (slightly more for EE/ME, slightly less for sales/administratives.) Early word is that college grads are having a hard time finding jobs in their preferred discipline, btw.

The crunch is in the high-end professionals: 10-20 years' experience administratives and IT types. THERE, when their jobs are cut, they find comparable experience requirements pay $15-20K less than they were used to.

Typical IT Project Manager was $80-100K. Now $60-80K. Bennies Manager, same. Customer Service Manager, same. It's almost like taking out a layer of the salary mountain.