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America's Bosses Are Finding Ways to Pay Workers Less
Wall Street Journal ^ | 08/30/2024 | By Ray A. Smith, Chip Cutter and Lynn Cook

Posted on 08/30/2024 8:39:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Bosses are quietly trying to reset worker pay levels, saying the era of overpaying for talent is over.

Pay for many white-collar recruits shrank last year, and now wages for new hires in construction, manufacturing, food and other blue-collar sectors appear to be ebbing too, according to an analysis of millions of jobs posted on ZipRecruiter.com.

Job seekers report seeing roles that once offered salaries between $175,000 and $200,000 a year ago now being advertised for tens of thousands of dollars less, a change that has had them rethinking their pay expectations. Companies are also moving job openings to lower-cost cities or offering them as lower-paying contractor roles, recruiters and corporate advisers say.

The push to reset employee salaries reflects a power shift in the cooling hiring market. Employers have more choice of who they can hire, and at what pay level, and are questioning whether they really need star hires when a workhorse will do. Even hourly jobs that were until recently the toughest for employers to fill are being advertised at lower pay than a year ago, as are some professional roles, according to business leaders and recruiters.

“A lot of companies are thinking they can get away with paying a cheaper salary because they know us job seekers are desperate,” said Eric Joondeph, 31 years old, who has been looking for a senior customer-experience role for nine months. He has lowered his pay expectations by at least $20,000 a year since he started looking.

Among listings for more than 20,000 different job titles on ZipRecruiter.com this year, sectors including retail, agriculture, transportation and warehousing, manufacturing, and food all registered drops in average posted pay. The biggest was retail, where average wages advertised for new hires is down 55.9%; agriculture is down 24.5% and manufacturing, down 17.3%.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: economy; inflation; labor; wages
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1 posted on 08/30/2024 8:39:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Nothing like continous inflationary pressures to make everyone poorer....middle class, working class and the poverty stricken impacted the most. As usual. Short memories since the Nixon, Ford and Carter debacle years of inflation. Guns and butter policies caused that round.....people born after 1980 wouldn’t have a clue..until the last four years....


3 posted on 08/30/2024 8:43:19 AM PDT by john drake (Lucius Accius-Roman,170 BC - "oderint dum metuant" translated "Let them hate so long as they fear")
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To: SeekAndFind
the era of overpaying for talent is over

1) There is a lot of talk about "ghost" jobs that are advertised but which don't really exist.
2) There is also a lot of talk of businesses that DO want to hire people but "no one wants to work today".
3) If you pay people a good wage, they WILL want to work for you.
4) If you decide to cut the pay, you WILL have trouble hiring people.
5) If illegals get deported, wages are going to go up, not down.
6) In an inflationary time, cutting wages is just dumb.

4 posted on 08/30/2024 8:46:11 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (I think women should get out of women's sports before they get hurt.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I say the over paying for talent or the lack of talent is far worse at the top of the cooperate ladder than at the bottom.


5 posted on 08/30/2024 8:49:29 AM PDT by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again," )
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To: fella

Just look at the WOKE COEs and the boards that select them that have come to light recently.


6 posted on 08/30/2024 8:51:19 AM PDT by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again," )
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To: fella

ABSOLUTELY! Have to agree whole-heartedly.


7 posted on 08/30/2024 8:52:43 AM PDT by Sequoyah101 (More important than why there was nobody protecting the AGR roof, how did Crooks know that?)
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To: SeekAndFind

What is, “senior customer-experience role”?


8 posted on 08/30/2024 8:53:04 AM PDT by Sequoyah101 (More important than why there was nobody protecting the AGR roof, how did Crooks know that?)
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To: SeekAndFind
The real trick isn't 'overpaying' for talent. What's difficult to do is to have a full operating staff without the bad eggs, because that's mostly all you will find in the labor market, from what I understand. You have to sift through a lot of chaff to get the wheat. When that happens, when you do find someone good, you need to pay more to keep them.
9 posted on 08/30/2024 8:53:09 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: SeekAndFind

They are just hiring illegals and other foreigners and telling Americans to eff off.


10 posted on 08/30/2024 8:53:21 AM PDT by wildcard_redneck (He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I work for one of these companies!


11 posted on 08/30/2024 8:54:09 AM PDT by oil_dude
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To: john drake
I would think employers are re-thinking their need for a senior customer-experience person even for free.

Did that specific job title even exist 30 years ago?

12 posted on 08/30/2024 8:54:52 AM PDT by Mogger (AreIn bookstores is a very expensive, beautifully bound in green leather Holy Koran. If one was goin)
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To: SeekAndFind

A boss can’t pay you the full worth of what you produce other than in exceptional situations, the boss has to have a little left over to be his income. I figured this out 49 years ago at age 26 and started working for myself. It worked out great. I never had an employee either.


13 posted on 08/30/2024 8:54:56 AM PDT by SaxxonWoods (The world is driven by envy, not greed.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Instructing their customers to pull cash out of their pockets, or app to their bank account to pay the company’s workers for normal functions and everyday work, is one way.


14 posted on 08/30/2024 9:02:25 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: SeekAndFind

Golly. Who woulda thunk millions of illegal turd world invaders would drive down labor costs.


15 posted on 08/30/2024 9:04:09 AM PDT by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: john drake

***the Nixon, Ford and Carter debacle years of inflation. ***

I remember those days. it began when Lyndon Johnson took silver out of the coinage. Everything jumped in price then and continued to go up even though Ford”s WIN (Whip Inflation Now) buttons were supposed to stop it.


16 posted on 08/30/2024 9:06:53 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar ( Government is not reason, it is not eloquence-it is force!--G. Washington)
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To: SeekAndFind

Overpaying for talent? They’ve been doing that for CEOs and CFOs for decades.....


17 posted on 08/30/2024 9:08:10 AM PDT by jeffc (Resident of the free State of Florida)
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To: SeekAndFind

I love how this stuff blames the “bosses” for not over paying for staff.

Isn’t it a bosses job to make sure the company pays “market price” for materials and labor? Bosses who pay higher than market will find themselves cutting expenses after a cycle or so in order to stay in business.

I guess they don’t teach basic business at the high school level any more.

(And, here is a tip as well: Wall Street Analysts have more to say about projected profit margins for the next 24 months than ANY of the “bosses.” But no one wants to talk about how their 401k fund is driving American businesses into the ground!)


18 posted on 08/30/2024 9:08:21 AM PDT by Vermont Lt (Don’t vote for anyone over 70 years old. Get rid of the geriatric politicians.)
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To: Sequoyah101

In the old days it would be a retail VP or Senior VP.

I often listen in on my wife’s work calls. The title inflation is silly. They like to think they are being more “accurate” in their descriptions, but 99% of the titles are BS. She used to be a corporate writer. Now she is a Senior Media Relations Coordinator. He main job: Corporate writing.


19 posted on 08/30/2024 9:11:17 AM PDT by Vermont Lt (Don’t vote for anyone over 70 years old. Get rid of the geriatric politicians.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Also, those jobs that are now paying less better be work-from-home jobs...


20 posted on 08/30/2024 9:11:41 AM PDT by jeffc (Resident of the free State of Florida)
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