Annual IT Salary Survey Finds Dissatisfaction 582
BobB writes "A storm seems to be brewing in the IT job market. Pay raises have continued to outpace inflation, and bonuses are downright impressive — 11.6% on average. Yet, as the 2007 Network World Salary Survey finds, dissatisfaction over salary packages is rampant."
The secret to maintaining a healthy IT job market. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The secret to maintaining a healthy IT job mark (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironically, (unreasonably) high wage demands typically have more to do with the non-tangible compensation that a job offers than the actual amount of money employees make. That is, when people are happy with their job, when they enjoy the social contacts, when they get to work in a nice environment and, above all, when they have a sense of purpose, then they make reasonable wage demands. When the job sucks, they spend 8 hours a day thinking "I don't get paid enough for this shit." In that case, no wage will be high enough.
One of those things that management should be doing is ensuring that their employees have the intangibles to keep them happy and productive. That is something that our much derided PHBs learn to do in their MBA programs. However, I think that the IT industry is having issues in this arena because the skill set required to perform the job is so specialized that programmers who get promoted to managers never bother to acquire "managerial" skill sets (or they just don't put any value in managerial skill sets) and people who do have managerial skill sets are so wildly incompetent in IT that you would not dream of hiring them to manage coders or SAs.
just my $.02
-mat
Re:The secret to maintaining a healthy IT job mark (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The secret to maintaining a healthy IT job mark (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm observed that firing the "dead wood" in the second fashion resulted in losing about 50% of our highest quality employees over the next 18 months. Many of them had been here for 10 or more years. Prior to this the company was strongly against mass firings or layoffs. So people who valued that stayed despite lower pay.
If you are good- and you can make $120k, then why the hell would you stay at a company for $106k unless there is some non-financial incentive? That is exactly what happened here.
The result is a lot of canceled projects- failed projects- etc. when a key resource for the project suddenly disappears into tech consulting or the oil field.
Re:The secret to maintaining a healthy IT job mark (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you are on to something. The problem partially stems from IT being a very young component in business. Consider that Accounting has been around for hundreds of years... there is an established relationship between various types of businesses and accounting professionals. Yet IT has only been around for a few decades. I don't think businesses nor the profession itself knows how to deal with the problems of succession and management of talent.
The most "fun" work environment for the worker is one of unstructured cooperation where there are no rules. This is not the ideal since that freedom can potentially lead to disaster in the wrong coworker's hands. Eventually management will get paranoid about waste.
The most "profitable" work environment is where nothing goes to waste and every key stroke leads to profit. This is not the ideal since that efficiency means a loss of adaptability and a high burn out rate for employees. It turns out that the highly profitable environment can only exist in sprints.
There should be a sustainable happy medium that works well as a company grows. I don't know what that is yet. I haven't seen it in my work history.
Re:The secret to maintaining a healthy IT job mark (Score:5, Insightful)
The most "fun" work environment for the worker is one of unstructured cooperation where there are no rules.
That sounds like it ought to be true, but IMHO it isn't. I think IT mainly attracts three kinds of people, and if you look at what drives them, it's never really that.
Firstly, you have those who are only in it for the money. They probably took some university course just so they could work in IT, and they probably aren't very good at their job. Most of them don't get very far, because their attitude is entirely selfish, and the only motivator they have is making as much money as possible from doing as little real work as possible. In their minds, they'll have fun later, when they're rich.
Then you have the "journeyman" developers and sysadmins: those who are happy to work in a well-paid industry, but basically see it as just another job. These people represent the largest proportion of the industry, IME. They are typically competent but unexceptional in their skill and aptitude, and approach their jobs with a reasonably professional attitude. The best motivator for these people, IME, is simply to let them get on with their job: give them clear instructions about what needs to be done, and some relevant background information if they're the kind of person who likes to see how they fit into the bigger picture, and then just get out of the way and let them do their work. These people typically recognise the value of good organisation, and respect strong but flexible leadership. They don't go to work to have fun, but they will find their work environment most pleasant this way and rarely demand more.
Finally, you have the guru types. Often, these are the guys who got into IT because they enjoy the field. If they took a university course they enjoyed or they get paid well, that's almost incidental, and just a bonus on top of having a job where they enjoy the work. These guys know their subjects inside out. The big variable — and the thing that separates the gurus who are great people to have in your group from the gurus who are liabilities — is how well these guys do things outside their own development or administration work.
Those who develop people skills, understand the business context for their work, cooperate with management, and give constructive input to these areas from the point of view of the IT guy, tend to go far, though they tend to stick to a technical path rather than moving into management. Motivation for these guys often comes from seeing a good result from their work, and they will work in whatever way seems best to achieve that goal. Again, this isn't usually unstructured cooperation; on the contrary, IME these guys are the ones most likely to want good processes in place, and to appreciate readily whether existing processes are helping or getting in the way. Often, these guys also value honest recognition when they produce good work, and like to know that when they make constructive suggestions they are being listened to.
Of course, you also get the gurus who want to have everything their own way. These are the guys who want their own office and to work in their own style. They want full-time ownership of the code they write (not that it matters since no-one else can understand it anyway) or the final say over any changes to their networks. These guys probably are motivated by unstructured work, but cooperation is a word that doesn't enter their vocabulary. Frankly, you're better off hiring a couple of less egotistical, less demanding, and far more pleasant and constructive journeyman types anyway than you would be getting stuck with one of these guys, who seem to be known as "rock star programmers" in trendy blogs.
So I don't think unstructured cooperation is really fun for any of the major types of IT guy. The good ones tend to appreciate enough structure to do an effective job, while the bad ones will cooperate only as far as is necessary to get what they want anyway, and often would prefer to stay under the radar and just do things their own way. Constructive anarchy doesn't really work for either group.
Housing up 50% & Salaries up only 11% = !Satis (Score:4, Funny)
Up here in Canada, you're lucky to get 4% raise/Yr in IT. Wages in general have been quite stagnent in the past 3 or 4 years (except Alberta Oil cities), yet our housing prices are climbing in mutliple urban cities at double digit percentage rates
Adeptus
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1) Rising Energy costs (i.e. Oil @ $84 anyone?)
2) Higher Energy costs increase costs of most consumer goods due to higher cost to transport them
3) War in Afghanistan & Iraq costs a few billion per month that you pay through taxes
4) US dollar deflating for the past year against just about every other currency by 20%+
5) Crazy Tuition fees in your Universities
6) Even more insane Health Care costs
Time to buy Gold
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Recently they took out the cost of energy because it it went up huge; their explanation was that they didn't want it to 'distort' the numbers. (despite the fact that everyone in the country still has to buy gas for their cars and heat their homes so it -should- be reflected.)
Even worse, they have a fucked up system of computing negative
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well 'adapting' isn't quite as easy when the public transportation system stinks. Best I can do is catch a bus downtown, then a bus out to the suburb where I work, then take a circular (or walk 3 miles) for a grand total of 3 1/2 hours (one way, mostly waiting for buses) vs 15 minutes by car. There is a decent bike route, but at 17 miles (about 4 more than driving since the road and paths aren't straight like the freeway) it's a bit
European salaries != US salaries (Score:5, Interesting)
Can anybody explain this huge difference? Is the cost of living in the US just so much higher than in Europe? Or does IT just pay a lot more in the US?
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Plus, here i
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Depending on where you live, cost of living in US is compatible or less than it is in Europe. No idea why their IT salaries are so high. Maybe they're more open about how much they earn than people in some parts of Europe are?
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And considering the high-cost of living in Delft versus same cost in Frankfurt (except for 3 train changes between these places).
I dont think it varies much between EU cities except for a +10/-10% variance to account for local county taxes.
Re:European salaries != US salaries (Score:5, Informative)
Taxes on salary in various 'slices' (this is federal income tax + social security tax):
16.2% for 0 to 5,354 Euro
21.2% for 5,355 to 21,737 Euro
31.2% for 21,738 to 52,624 Euro
34.2% for 52,625 - 67,286 Euro
28% + 4,171 Euro for 67,287 - 109,787 Euro
33% + 4,171 Euro for 109,788 - 238,688 Euro
35% + 4,171 Euro for 238,689 Euro and the remainder above
(the reason for the last three amounts is that social security tax is only on salary up to 67,286 Euros, salary in excess of that is not assessed social security tax)
You also have to add in state tax, which in CA is between 1% and 9%, depending on how much you make. It's too much trouble to work that into the table above, because the ranges are all different, but if you make more than 28,616 Euros (which just about any person working in IT would), it's 9.3%. So add that makes the tax rates closer to 40% - 50% total for the medium to high tax brackets.
Furthermore, there are small taxes assessed for things like state disability insurance, but these don't sum up to more than 1% usually.
State sales tax: 7.25% (if I rememer correctly)
- Medical insurance: free (paid for by employer) if you have a decent job, anywhere from 350 - 900 Euros per month (depending on the size of your family and your age) if you do not. I personally have never had to pay for medical insurance, and most IT workers would be the same.
- Childcare: ~5 Euro/hour
- Gasoline: 0.56 Euro/liter (= 3.00 Dollar/gallon)
- Public transport: about 3 Euro for 25KM by train, or 6 Euro for a 25KM with a return ticket (I am basing this on $4.00 USD for Caltrain between two "zones", which I am guessing is about 25 KM)
As to new cars, they are much cheaper in the USA and there are no additional taxes beyond state sales tax (although I have never bought a new car, I am just assuming this is true). That E 32,840 car probably would only cost E 22,000 total in the USA.
As you can see, the USA income tax rate is not so much different from your rate, when you factor in all income taxes paid (we pay alot of individual taxes in the USA - federal, state, local (sometimes - in New York City you have to also pay a local income tax!), social security, disability, etc, etc) the rate is typically somewere around 33% total in the USA (if you have a good I.T. job and are making $80,000+ USD per year), whereas it looks like around 40% in your country.
The difference is that sales tax (you call it VAT) is higher in your country (20% vs. 7.25%) and most individual items probably cost more in your country (the cost of gasoline, childcare, and a car demonstrate this).
One big factor you did not mention is the cost of buying a house or renting an apartment. In the Bay Area a modest size family home is at least $700,000 USD (about E 500,000), and renting a moderate apartment is about $1,800 per month (E 1,300). Owning a home in the Bay Area is very, very expensive (compare to homes in Canton, Ohio where my mom lives - houses there are about $150,000 USD, or about E 100,000).
In general, the USA is a very inexpensive place to live.
I have been living in New Zealand for almost a year now and I'd say that it's somewhere between the USA and your country in taxes and cost of living; more expensive than the USA but not as expensive as Europe.
Re:European salaries != US salaries (Score:4, Informative)
In the UK it's approximately:
0% for 0 to 7000 EUR
10% for 7000 to 10000 EUR
22% for 10000 to 53000 EUR
40% above 53000 EUR
Additionally we have Employees National insurance
0% below 7000 EUR
11% for 7000 to 47000 EUR
1% above 47000 EUR
And employers National insurance (Which the employer pays but doesn't appear anywhere on your payslip)
Which I think is
12.8% on everything.
(The employers NI doesn't affect your take home pay - if you earn 100000 before tax you will pay approx 28000 Tax, 5000 NI and take home approx 67000. Your employer will pay an additional 12800 NI so the overall income tax rate is either 33000/100000 = 33% or 45000/112000 = 40% depending on how you account for the employers NI)
Then there's VAT at 17.5% on almost everything.
Contributions to a pension scheme are paid gross (but employers NI is still paid)
Perks such as health insurance are taxed as though they were income but you don't pay any more NI.
House prices vary a lot. In London, average house prices vary from 1M GBP (1.4M EUR) in Kensington and Chelsea to as little as 200K GBP 280K EUR in Barking and Dagenham.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/uk_house_prices/counties/html/county37.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Tim.
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To give you some idea of what prices are like in London, I'd just assumed this said
and renting a moderate apartment is about $1,800 per week
I've managed to find:
Walburgh Street, Aldgate, E1
Total Sq Ft: 533 (49 Sq M) approx.
Bedrooms: 2 bedrooms
For 250GBP/week
To give you some idea of what is available at the low end.
And at the high end:
De Vere Gardens, Kensington, W8
Total Sq Ft: 1,158 (107 Sq M) approx.
Bedrooms: 1 bedroom
For 1000GBP/
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From those numbers, you must be living in a part of Europe that is considered extremely expensive even for European standards (my guess would be either one of the most expensive cities in Germany (Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart) or in the UK). Heck, I live in one of these places and I find some of the numbers rather odd (the costs for food - unless, of course, you have to feed a family significantly larger than four with that).
Al
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US Salaries != Japan salaries, either (Score:3, Insightful)
It's caused by oil (Score:2)
Oil is denominated in US dollars. It means the whole world has to buy and hold USD reserves. This increases the demand for dollars more than other currencies and keeps it artificially strong. If you compare the salaries you'll see approximately where the dollar is heading if the oil link is broken [telegraph.co.uk].
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I think the difference isn't so much the cost of living, more the lack of extra expenses paid by US employers. Here, every employee costs the employer about twice of what he gets paid, due to taxes and mandatory insurances. When you take that into account, you're actually above 56k a year.
Re:European salaries != US salaries (Score:5, Interesting)
This could get political, so please don't take any of these comments as judgments on the personal worth of Americans or Europeans, or about which nations are better that which other ones. There are lots of fine folks on both sides of the pond, and there's more to life than salaries and GDP. I'm just trying to explain the salary difference, since you asked. I'll just throw these possible reasons out there and we'll see what sticks...
According to an article in The Economist earlier this year (sorry, don't have a link), American companies get a higher ROI (usually measured in increased productivity) on investments in IT projects (this actually goes with the company, not the worker, so it's probably down to management, but in any case a higher "R" makes you willing to be a little more free with the "I").
Also, Europeans work significantly fewer hours per year than Americans, on average. Like 15% fewer [ecb.int], according to that linked speech from the President of the European Central Bank. Looking at the yearly salary, then, distorts the figure for how much people are being paid for each unit of labor input (though, even per hour worked, Americans are more productive, so that further raises the value of the labor to the company).
Put another way, according to that same ECB article the US has a 50% higher GDP per capita than Europe (Europe's is two-thirds that of the US), so the output is higher, too. And some of that trickles down (not much, but some).
And, of course, unemployment in America is much lower than in Europe (for August, it was 4.6% in the US vs 9% in, e.g, Germany). If you have twice as many people looking for jobs, well, the employer can offer lower pay and someone will be glad to be earning more than zero.
So, those would make it reasonable for companies in the US to be willing to pay higher salaries.
Plus, it's easier to terminate people without cause in America, which means poor performers with their low salaries (who would otherwise drag down the average) can be taken off your books immediately, without a lengthy process of review and appeal. In some places in Europe, it can take a while to fire someone and may not be possible in borderline cases, and you have to demonstrate cause. Since IT workers often have privileges you don't want them to use during a hostile termination, this sometimes leads to the ludicrous situation of paying someone not to come to work for a few months (and that person is probably not going to get a raise and a bonus and bump up the average, eh?). Of course, despite this, unemployment is lower, anyway, so it's not like the US is cheating by not counting all the $0 salaries, unless maybe you count the huge prison population
Similarly, you have to take into account the large concentrations of American IT workers in places like Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is a very risky place. The companies that succeed are often flush with cash. But the companies that fail don't pay anybody, and unemployed people don't count into the average. And, of course, the cost of living is high in Silicon Valley.
So, those effects would also tend to raise the average.
Much of this stuff could be explained as the result of the different paths America and Europe have taken with running their societies, specifically with how much risk they are willing to tolerate. But, like I said, there's more to life than high salaries. And those American salaries are getting lower in real terms by the day as Americans' purchasing power is eroded by the falling dollar. So, enjoy your vacation days and social services and don't fret too much about it.
Social TAX means low IT salaries (Score:4, Insightful)
Some basic reasons
1) Employers Tax. The US and UK don't penalize companies for employing people. The UK has a small employer tax and some US states have none. Most continental countries have a significant company tax burden for each employee.
2) Culture. The US and UK have pretty dynamic IT markets with people not remaining with one company for a long time, this means people pay more to attract talent knowing that this will help.
3) Cost of firing. The US (more than the UK, but the UK is less than the continent) has very little employee protection which means you can get rid of poor employees or during a down turn. In the continent this isn't the case so the wages are lower as employers have to employ good and crap people and have to factor in the cost of not getting rid of them.
The other thing that shouldn't be overlooked is the fact that English is the lingua franca of computing, this does tend to mean that top people from all countries move towards the US (and to a lesser extent the UK) and that everyone has to speak english thus meaning there is more international competition for jobs in the US and UK markets.
With the way that the dollar is at the moment the average UK IT salary could well be above our cousins over the pond.
Is there anyone happy with their salary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is there anyone happy with their salary? (Score:4, Funny)
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Does everyone really automatically feel that they should be paid more than their position/skill level/experience justifies?
Personally, I'd rather be paid what I'm worth.
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Must suck to be Bill, because, well, he has nobody to complain about.
Re:Is there anyone happy with their salary? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't smoke, I don't drink. I don't own a car (gotta love europe), neither do I want or need one.
My monthly utility bills amount to 15% of my paycheck, and food perhaps another 15% - I eat lots of fruit and veggies, and enjoy cooking stuff from scratch. Processed food is harmful and expensive.
Most of my entertainment is found online. Building stuff in Second Life, IMing friends, reading web pages and playing the odd flash game. I also enjoy cycling on weekends, and getting together with my RL friends for a chat over a 60-cent cup of coffee.
I do not own any consoles, CDs, DVDs, and buy maybe 1 or 2 books a year.
I end up taking my girlfriend to the fanciest restaurants in town for lack of a better idea of what to do with my money.
I realize that some people are addicted to the status symbol treadmill, but I find that an exceedingly frivolous way of life, and I do not personally know anyone like that.
I guess engineers lean strongly towards Make rather than Buy. We keep ourselves entertained through things that other people would consider "zomg too much work".
Re:Is there anyone happy with their salary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Its called F*** You money (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to be just like you. I'd look at m
Re:Is there anyone happy with their salary? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Hm, interesting statement. Isn't pretty much all food processed in one way or another? (Iodine in salt, pasteurization of dairy products, vitamin C added, etc.) Most of these processes are in place specifically to make the food less harmful-- less likely you'll drink spoiled milk, less likely you'll suffer from iodine or vitamin C deficiency, etc.
Whether it's more expensive to buy iodized salt rather than non-iodized salt, I dunno. But saying processed foods are harmf
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I was pretty happy with my salary until I realized I lived in the US. I'd say the unhappiness with salaries is a cause of cultural beliefs and influences like the "American Dream." In a nutshell, the American dream is to make lots of money so you can live a glamorous lifestyle. Many of the cultural influences and US laws also force people to working harder and making more money.
For example take the way the US is built and real estate. Most places in the US build outwards rather than upwards. Because the
Which measure of inflation? (Score:2)
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The US still has the advantage that the US dollar is the currency used for much international trade, so they get to tax other _countries_.
If the USA "prints money"[1] the US dollars Japan or China gets for selling their stuff to the USA automatically gets worth less even if they're still holding on to it.
Great eh? Now that stops working so well if too many countries switch to the Euro or something else.
Think I'm wrong?
[1] Possible ways of print
In the voice of Dr. Zoidberg (Score:3, Funny)
When did this happen ?
That's not funny !!!!
The unsatisfied worker (Score:5, Funny)
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I mean, honestly, is that what really happens to a lot of people. I mean, it says there "typical network professionals", right? I can see that the "typical disgruntled network professional" has been in the job for a few years (give or take, on average), that he had to move his desk 3 times (give or take, again), that he may not receive a bonus... but how the hell does
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Wish I was paid like this in the UK (Score:5, Interesting)
I graduated with a degree in Computer Science in 2002, and have had awful trouble finding a well paid job. Most of the jobs advertised were web development, which were always badly paid (my first job out of university paid barely above minimum wage). These jobs usually ended before 6 months, once I'd completed a couple of projects for them and before they would be legally required to give me redundancy pay.
There were a couple of good job openings (I was once approached by a recruitment agency to apply for a job with Google in Dublin) but of course seeing as I was not the only desperate compsci grad in the West Midlands competition for them was pretty fierce and I didn't get them.
I was trapped in web development, but I was pretty good at it. I constantly taught myself new technologies as I developed sites, worked on projects in my spare time to expand my skills, and had a good eye for front end design from a job I had in the print industry. Despite this I was never paid more than £12k a year for web development. My current job is pays £14k, doing office admin work for the police, and that is the most I've ever been paid for anything.
Then it seemed to be looking up. I'd gone for a support job at a large US company, and at the interview they had been so impressed with my aptitude scores and my general IT knowledge they recommended me for a better paying job (£20k) with their programming department. Sadly, I fell foul of their Gestapo-like HR department, who decided not to give me the job because, during one of the interviews over the phone to a woman in Texas, I didn't sound 'positive enough'. I'm not sure how positive a man from Yorkshire is supposed to sound to a Texan over a transatlantic phone line, but there you go.
This is why I'm now starting a Physics degree. Fuck the IT industry, it's not worth it. I slaved away for cockle-picking money, and when my talents were finally recognised I was rejected because of some idiotic HR impression of me, rather than the evidence of my aptitude tests. Hopefully, physics is a field where people are rewarded for their knowledge and intelligence rather than whatever smarmy 'people skills' HR are after. Perhaps I'm being Naive, but it can't be much worse than being in the IT industry.
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How about me? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Get a decent guru interested in a project, and he'll deliver more, better and faster than a half dozen regulars. I've worked with enough regular programmers to know that you need at least one week of heavy testing by another team for any noteworthy development. I've also worked with barely a handful of really good guys, whose code I had no qualms about dumping straight into customer accepta
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This might be true. But a first rate, confident, programmer in the IT industry who isn't on a super high salary in the City (earning well in excess of 100k)
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I graduated with a BEng Computer Engineering in 2004 and spent a couple of years bumming around various 1st line helpdesk roles before I got lucky with a decent agency who got me a contract 3rd line role in the NHS. Once you get that first step, it becomes much easier to find further roles because you have the experience and job history.
Also, if you can, be a contracter, it pays a shitload more than most permanent roles and as long as
Re:Wish I was paid like this in the UK (Score:5, Insightful)
> during one of the interviews over the phone to a woman in Texas, I didn't sound 'positive enough'.
Sorry, that is really rough. I had a similar problem once where I got to the final stages of the interview process, the guys I interviewed with were all ready to hire me, but just because I *asked* the HR interview person if in the future the company would be considering allowing employees the occasional work-at-home day (not that I expected to work at home at all, but was thinking about the future when I might have kids).
I think it's really stupid that technology companies let their interview process get hamstrung by HR departments. They should not have HR interviews at all. If the people you're going to work with like you, the HR department really ought not to have any say in it at all.
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You sound like a heaven-send to them. However, such qualities may never be appreciated if you don't bring it up skillfully. Inspired by dental clinic and architect offices where you always find magazines with subtle or not so subtle messages, I would find magazines featuring a cover story of SQL i
I was dissatisfied so I asked for $65535 (Score:5, Funny)
Actually boss, never mind that pay raise I wanted, just make my salary exactly $65535 and I'll forget about the whole thing. You are using excel 2007 [slashdot.org], right?
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Hours and Reality? (Score:2)
(1) How many working hours per week is the median? Most IT jobs that I've come across only pay that well when you're working 60h+/week, or your at the top of the ladder with a fancy title.
(2) Where is this kind of compensation? $82,000 median base pay for my region (Great Lakes) seems very high for most positions. I recently received an offer for a Help Desk spot for a regional bank on a rotating shift schedule, $14/hr...$29,120an. No thanks. Except for sales, every
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My blunt question was: HOW? Never mind the C# requirement (let's assume it was an error on their side and the standard requirement of 3 years, not caring that the language barely existed), but how can someone with a bac degree not be over 25 and have 10 years professional experience? Start when you're 15 at some company, finish high school on the si
I still have too much..... (Score:5, Funny)
.... month left at the end of my salary.
Salary is similar to menstruation:
Inflation (Score:4, Informative)
A lot of people go to Wal-Mart, see the low prices, and think inflation is low. They forget about housing, college tuition, and healthcare, which have all been running at double-digit percentage increases annually for the past several years.
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Where? WHERE? (Score:2)
And, are you hiring?
Could it MAYBE be that they're factoring in the "compensation raises" in the upper echelons, where increases of 30+ percent aren't unheard of? And that 30 percent of a 6 digit number does have quite a b
Re:inflation (Score:5, Insightful)
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i challenge ANYONE to survive all that on inflation alone.
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I'm betting that just isn't the case. inflation doesn't make amends for you trying to improve your quality of life (unless it's with tech where prices have downward pressure on them due to the speed of advancement).
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so you live in the same place, drive the same value car with the same amt of coverage, use the same amt of electricity in your home and use your phone the same amount?
I'm in a similar position to the GP. I drive the same car, pay the same on insurance, use the same electricity, and pay the same for internet. I'm now living with my fiancee so food and power are slightly up but for the same reason my booze costs have gone down by more than enough to compensate. :P My rent, however, has gone up by 130%, petrol costs about 50%-60% more than it did when I bought my current car, food is maybe 50% more.
Overall I'm earning $7.5k more per year than I was at my last job two yea
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I live in a mining boom town, only until very recently the boom didn't include me. lots of people are in the same situation.
my rent in the same apartment went from $180 a week to $300 in the space of 18 months. That alone FAR outstrips inflation, let alone everthing else going through the roof with it. If i hadn't gotten lucky i simply wouldn't have had the money to live
maybe it's just an australian thing and not applicable to this survey.
Re:inflation (Score:5, Interesting)
Chances are if your wages are really increasing by that percentage, your spending or consumption is up (did you buy that iPhone..?). Inflation has recently been around 2.5-3%, realistically around 2%...so if you're exceeding that in salary increases, it's probably not due to inflation.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
you can talk about figures all you want, it makes no difference at the end of the day when my pay check is all gone and i have nothing extra to show for it.
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Re:inflation (Score:5, Interesting)
Inflation is probably not outpacing your salary, all those reasons inflation is overstated are rock solid. Compare your spending and consumption with last year. If your taxes increased (property taxes often do) factor that in. Unless your salary remained constant or you took a pay cut, it is impossible for inflation alone to account for a decline in real income, probably taxes and new purchases.
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Not in the figures. What is inflation to you?
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And food has been getting significantly more expensive in my area the past year, especially milk, fruits, vegetables.
Re:inflation (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually virtual all economists agree that the inflationary rate is overstated by around 1%.
The article you quoted says $1 in 1976 bought what $3.55 does today. If I divide my present salary by 3.55 and compare it to what I was making in 1976, I see a 7% increase. From all the people I've compared notes with, I don't think I'm far from the average pay, although my work has been far above average. Bear in mind, I'm considerably older than most of my coworkers and to stay employed in technical work, I've changed jobs and careers. Nonetheless, it's apparent that my wages have not outpaced inflation over the long run. Perhaps if I had been management material, I'd have made better money but I wanted to continue doing technical work.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Over the last years I saw my salary rise around 40%-50%, but the cost of living nearly *doubled*.
I can't even put enough money aside to get a loan for a house and am currently stuck at renting, which is a waste of money.
As to some of the remarks that this may be a result of a more exuberant lifestyle : Bullshit.
I have to be very careful I don't spend more than I earn, and the end of the month is always a difficult period.
(I can't even afford t
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Then tell me:
The money supply to the UK is increasing at 14%pa (Score:2)
No idea what the US supply looks like. They decided you don't need to know that [moneyweek.com].
Re:inflation (Score:5, Funny)
Remind me never to buy a storage array from you...
Cryptic posts VERY badly misunderstood (Score:3, Insightful)
What you mean by "money" is obviously different than mine. My "money" has the stamp of the location it was minted in.
Do you know what inflation REALLY is?
Eh... Inflation is where money becomes less valuable when compared to other commodities. Money is a commodity, and all commodities have relative worth based on their availability.
Do you know who benefits from inflation and who loses out?
Benefits == people who owe. Loses out
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What you mean by "money" is obviously different than mine. My "money" has the stamp of the location it was minted in.
Clearly. Money is any medium of exchange. Over 95% of the money in the US comes from debt. Not from a mint or from the government and it doesn't exist as bits of green paper. I doubt you hold most of your money as green paper.
Benefits == people who owe. Loses out == people with cash savings?
Well, another way to put it. The people who benefit from inflation are those who can afford to be in assets rather than cash. The rich rather than the poor.
If you take on debt to get into assets you only benefit if that particular asset inflates at more than the rate of interest, som
Re: (Score:2)
If you have something to say (perhaps, about debt) then say it. Otherwise, you're part of the problem - Go away.
But I'm still betting you have nothing meaningful to say.
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I know a few people who do. And they're getting more and more by the day, yes, a lot of people are simply effing broke. They have what they have in their wallet, 'til the end of the month.
Money is important but not the only consideration. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I could support a family while sticking at my current job I'd probably stay for a long time. The schedule is flexible, the work is fun and just challenging enough to be interesting, there is nobody micro-managing me and I mostly manage myself, my co-workers are friendly, and upper management isn't retarded (they're intelligent, honest, and fun to be around). I'm trying to do my part to earn the company more money so that my position can pay for it's own raise in pay.
Re:Money is important but not the only considerati (Score:3, Informative)
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*This could be a benefit as well though
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WHAT?! How it is not nice to leave your children to childcare? Are your childcare services so lousy or what? Children, like adults, learn social skills when communicating with each others. Basically more people or around, more skills your learn (unless you have some medical condition of course). Even "bad" situations where kids argue and even
Re:Money is important but not the only considerati (Score:5, Insightful)
So nowadays, the mere act of RAISING your own children is "overprotection?"
I agree, children should have social outlets. A morning pre-school for 3 and 4 year-olds is probably a good idea. But your notion that all day childcare is somehow > stay-at-home mom is a little silly to me.
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Also, why do you assume that not
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I answer only to this since I got to go in couple of minutes.
First of all, my english isn't so good so sorry if there was some rude or offending language :)
Second, I wasn't aware that childcare and family life is so different in USA (I assume that's where you live?). We have socially funded childcare system here in Finland. We pay something like 120 euros a month to local community and goverment pays the rest. We don't have nannies who come by to care the children or anything like that or at least it is n
Re:Money is important but not the only considerati (Score:5, Informative)
I doubt we'll homeschool, but (Score:3, Informative)
That said, I have no idea where one would go for an unbiased study of these things. A couple of links for your viewing pleasure:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res [nytimes.com]
Re:Money is important but not the only considerati (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Money is important but not the only considerati (Score:5, Insightful)
Following your logic, we should send kids to daycare because 75% of abuse happens from relatives? Sorry, but If you truly believe that your kids are better off in the hands of someone "Not their parents", then you shouldn't have had children. Maybe the percent is high because they spend most of their time with close relatives?
Yeah, I heard that most car accidents happen within 10 miles of home, so I am moving.
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It's not terrible for two adults in the same household to be working. It's terrible for two adults in the same household to be forced to work. If you've spent 17+ years of your life in school (including kindergarten and college), it certainly makes sense that you ought to be able to earn enough money to provide food and a place to live for your family. It's the lack of choice that is so terrible. Back in the mid-20th cen
Re:The peasants are revolting! (Score:4, Informative)
Still, a bit more salary would be nice. Though, what for? I'd just buy more computers or gadgets.
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Years ago, I saw jobs just like mine in Silicon Valley and NY making nearly three times my salary. When I looked into the actual cost of living, my standard of living would have gone down to move and take those jobs.
Good management is difficult (Score:3, Insightful)
If your IT system is so fragile that being gone for a week leads to major failures, then you're not doing a very good job at...wait for it...managing your systems. You shouldn't have to be on your systems 24/7 just to make them work. If that's the case, then something wrong is going on.