Are YOUR wages passing inflation? Mine aren't!

[Ttaskmaster]

I work in civil engineering. We're *always* underpaid!!
Most of us here just cot a cut, in fact... the percentage varies but 20-30% is the average, thanks to 'Generic Role Profiling'. The company is also dipping into the pension fund, which is apparently legal until the end of next financial year!!

Apparently, the real indicator of whether we're finally out of a recession is when the Civil Service give their peons a pay rise. Since that hasn't happened to any of my friends who work in CS, I assume we're technically still in...

[TheAnimus]

This graph is from American statistics, but I suspect it's the same or worse in the majority of developed countries. Norway has a better record, but stuff is expensive there.



source
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...graphs/282193/

I look at the labels, and I think hmm this is odd, how did they get such data. Then I look at the source. "unpublished total economy data" or a simpler name for it, his arse

If you pay people more, and they output the same, you get inflation. If people become more productive, whilst being paid the same, then you have deflation.

A big change in our cost of living, for me at least, has been that certain key things, such as food, have gone up in price a lot recently. This is due to the fact more of the world is bidding for them. As someone in China demands more daily wage, our cost of living will go up, our standard which is coming at the expense of the poverty stricken world, will decline.

However at the same time, whilst my income (thanks to my life choices!) has gone to about a third of what it was, my cost of living hasn't risen that much at all, sure this is only because I own my home. My food bill has increased a lot, maybe 30%, but my technology bill has massively decreased. An amazing phone is only £100, a cracking PC is only £500 etc. Meanwhile, key consumables such as textiles have remained low. I've not earned this little for over half a decade, yet, I've more money left over at the end of the month. This is probably due to owning my home, and bicycle being my primary form of transport.

[badass]

One thing people should question is how long were wages rising by more than inflation before the regression during this recession?
I suspect that there was a good 15 or more years of real terms wage increases.

[chezney]

Not me frozen salary for two years. An effective pay cut. :-(

[Funkstar]

Well we got a pay rise of 4% at the start of the year as part of a three year deal (3% next year and 3% the following). Then add in that my actual pay is largely based on how busy we are as a company, and how many days I'm working away. I've seen a significant increase since last year.

Mainly been eaten up by an increase in our living costs and debt repayments, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. I don't feel as skint as I did this time last year.

[Lucio]

Mine is, but that's because I'm in a position to squeeze my present employer a little, having built up a broad skills set, and good relationship with the company director whom I report to. Don't anticipate it continuing forever mind you, as my employer isn't raising it's prices this year to ensure business is retained and a greater % of bills are paid on time.

[Spud1]

I have a related question that I would want to pose.

Do (or did!) you *expect* to get an annual pay rise? Forgetting the past few years where a mostly media led recession has played too much of a part.

I'm relatively new to work - having graduated in 2007, going straight into my own business for a few years and only taking a full time professional job in 2010. Since then i've had a a number of promotions and so personally i've seen my wages increase..but I never got an incremental rise.

I'm curious if people expect it as normal. I'm now responsible for reviews/pay rises etc in my company, and I do everything based on performance and market conditions - if (like at the moment) you can just fart and get a job as a .net software developer, I need to make sure everyone gets a rise of at least inflation when it comes to their review (often more if they have been underpaid previously). When the market is quieter (like 12 months ago) the vast majority of people won't get anything at all. Maybe 1-2% if they have worked hard. A lot of that comes down to how well the company is doing too and what it can afford.

About 40% of the people I am responsible for expect an annual rise - mostly people from outside the UK. Everyone else appears genuinely shocked to ever see a rise. Some of them have had nothing for 5-6 years (so well before i took over the job) and that was just normal to them.

This thread implies that most people just expect to get a rise year on year - but is that a general trend or does it only apply to specific professions? Personally I don't expect an annual rise, I expect to get a rise when I do the work to justify it, or when I look at swapping to another company. Maybe thats more of an IT/Dev thing though..

[kalniel]

My situation's a bit odd - wages basically frozen, but because they're paid from outside the UK, the UK currency deflation the government/BoE engineered meant there's been what looks a wage increase. If personal cost inflation matches the currency deflation then things basically stand still for me in terms of real term wages.

Now we're seeing inflation fall, our currency might gain strength, and the reverse applies, but then if my personal inflation also falls, I stay the same (excluding performance related increases/promotion etc.)

[virtuo]

I think I answered "about the same" to this question. The company I work for give a 2% year-on-year raise (and a discretionary raise if you are lucky at review time), which technically beats inflation, but I still feel like I have less each month as my living costs seem to have increased by much more than 2% - food and energy being the biggest increase.

[Zak33]

I have a related question that I would want to pose.

Do (or did!) you *expect* to get an annual pay rise?

top class question and worthy of reply

I've worked in commission based jobs and I've worked salary based jobs

I've worked for companies that tend to have annual pay reviews and some kind of increase structure and some that just don't.

In commission based jobs even the "basic" part before commission tended not to rise. But the commission structures changed a fair bit to "incentivise" and it always worked for me and as a genrral rule as I got better at selling I made more .. over 15 years. Along with increases in basic salary alng with experience and/or responsibility.

Then I went fully salary.. no commission and no "bonus" but there were annual reviews. And the consistency that salary increased was clearly related to my efforts/results and the global recession then hit and it stopped. boom. stopped dead.

I have also worked self employed and charged daily and in one situation was entiteld to charge for a "bonus" that others in the team got and i was "part" of that effort.

that was most rewarding.

So I think people ARE motivated to having an annual increase AND I think that as fuel and food and heating costs increase it's likely you'll keep staff longer (if you want them!) with such a thing.

I think as a Nation we MIGHT be better off to stop many people "job jumping" to get the next grade salary, but until bosses see that increases are GOOD if the staff are good and it saves MAMMOTH amounts of unsettled periods while staff change AND saves money on recruitment... we might still see job moves instead of inhouse career plans

[scaryjim]

I have a related question that I would want to pose.

Do (or did!) you *expect* to get an annual pay rise?

I've worked almost exclusively in public sector positions, so the answer to that is yes. But even in the private sector jobs I've done there's generally been a small cost of living increase each year. Of course, the tendency for public sector jobs to run on stepped pay scales means I've usually got a cost of living rise *and* a pay increment each year (although I'm close to the top of my current grade so that will stop soon unless I get a promotion).

As to wages running ahead of inflation, on an annual basis I'm not entirely sure mine are, but over the life of the job they almost certainly are, because some negotiating genius about 7 or 8 years ago agreed a multi-year plan pay award that included the final year settlement being 2.5% or the September RPI, whichever was higher. That pay award landed in 2008, with the RPI running at 5% and the pay award being reflected in my pay packet pretty much exactly as the world economy was tanking. To say I felt somewhat lucky about that outcome would be a masterful understatement

[pastymuncher]

Nowhere near. Yet another miserable 1% increase again this year!!!

[kalniel]

Nowhere near. Yet another miserable 1% increase again this year!!!

Well that's only 0.6% off, so it's pretty near.

[taffster]

I do get a wage increase since my company is doing well, however, its not always been in line with inflation :/

[Saracen]

...

So I think people ARE motivated to having an annual increase AND I think that as fuel and food and heating costs increase it's likely you'll keep staff longer (if you want them!) with such a thing.

I think as a Nation we MIGHT be better off to stop many people "job jumping" to get the next grade salary, but until bosses see that increases are GOOD if the staff are good and it saves MAMMOTH amounts of unsettled periods while staff change AND saves money on recruitment... we might still see job moves instead of inhouse career plans

Well, there's a few things in that. I suspect that, as many people are used to getting an annual pay rise, they get to expect it and consider it almost a right. Then get the hump if it doesn't happen.

Beyond that, expecting a pay rise to always match or exceed inflation requires that people expect standard of living to always, year on year, at least stay the same if not improve. But how many would complain if, in good years, pay only kept pace with inflation?

The undeniable fact is that, in most of the world, things have been hard not jyst for individuals but for companies. Also, "hard" byvUK stansards is still the lap of luxury compsred to many countries where "hard" means srarving, literally, and benefits, let alone free schools, education, etc, simply don't exist.

In the UK, we take one hell of a lot for granted, as if it's a law of nature.

For most of the post-war years, at least post-late-50s when rationing ended, standards of living have almost always gone up, especially over a period of a few years. Forget owning houses, because that was the toy of the rich, and so were cars. In fact, even a TV used to be a talking point, mso no Sky, no broadband, no mobile phones and before that 60's onwards phase, it was a struggle simply to feed the family, even if food was in the shops. Yet now, we have a very smug attitude towards our expectations. We tend to assume the world owes us not only a living, but a pretty affluent and comfortable one, by "average" worldwide standards.

Many, maybe most companies, are only just starting to see order books expand. Wages are generally a very large component of total costs, and for many, the calculation comes to to considerable pay restraint, or cuts, or redundancies (or greater levels of them).

Having seen standards of living increase for the vast majority of years in the last half century, albeit with some rough patches, we can afford to see a modest drop. If it means dumping Sky, not buying a new car (or selling the old one), cutting down or stopping expenditure on booze, cigarettes, eating out or take-aways, the universe won't implode.

The simple fact is, as a country, we have become used to satisfying our wants, whether we can afford it or not. We've done it at a oersonal level, hence l7an and credit card debt levels. We've done it with pensions, hence so many 'old' schemes closing. And we've done it with public finances which, even after four years of so-called austerity, we STILL are nowhere close to a balanced budget, even after the 'automatic' stabilisers we csn expect from growth and employment are taken into account.

Frankly, the short-sighted greed of the current generation (or those running things, at least) is mind-boggling, is landing our kids and grand-kids with what's becoming an insurmountable debt problem, and we're likely to see them ending up despising our entitled attitude as a result.

We need to seriously get real with our attitude about what we can expect, and what we expect to pay for it (like pensions, care of the elderly, or the NHS) or we're going to end up despised as a greedy, selfish joke of a generation or two. Less Sky and mobile phones, more concern for health and socials care. And, short-term living standards WILL fall as a result.

[OilSheikh]

The poll should be renamed to
Does your wage increase mean anything considering the amount of tax you have to pay ?

My salary has gone up by 15k in the last 5 years but my monthly salary has gone up by only £300. Where's the rest ? Gone in income tax and NI !