That has always been the way. Companies seem to be unwilling to do very much to keep good employees, they prefer to lose them and go look for another.
One other thing I never understood was the idea that someone who works part time should be paid at a lower rate than a full time employee. Since part timers generally do not receive fringe benefits and are only paid when actually needed I would be willing to pay the part time person MORE money per hour worked.
Before I learned the system I was working for about 5 years or so. I got involved with training some new grad engineers. Which is fine. Then I find out the new college grads were making more than me. It was an eye opener. I was getting 3-4% merit raises and they(HR) were doing the same to the starting salaries. I was going backwards.