Laid-off workers find their pay slashed, no matter where they land: study

Good new! Canada avoided the massive recession of the USA, earns a fortune exporting our natural resources (oil, electricity, potash, wheat, rare earth metals, gold & diamonds) and has gone into deficit spending. Yet despite all this if you change your job you're going to see your pay slashed. Almost makes one feel like we need a different form of government.

I was laid off in March 2009 and find a job in the same field after one full year. I work in that company till now and I'm making just half of what I was making before the laid off. Of course. less responsibility and working hours, still work 8 hours a day.

Basically, if you lose your job in the past years chances are that you will be making less even if you can find a job in the same field.

Only our government said we are recovering and the stupid useless Mark Carney raised the interest rate twice. Our so called premier of BC Gordan Campbell implemented the HST in last July 1st. All I notticed is that I'm making less but payiing more!

YES! WE NEED A DIFFERENT FORM OF GOVERNMENT !!

I was making before the laid off. Of course. less responsibility and working hours.
money savings

I find it quite funny that 53% who had just found new jobs, could see them as long-term? How would that work exactly when the old saying still applies "Last one in, first one out". Don't they realize that this is exactly what will happen the next time another resession hits? Especially if a company is looking to restructure or clear a balance sheet? I can appreciate that you have to have hope and faith in tough times, but evenutally you will have to stop lying to yourself.

XXXXXR - Depending on the field you work in... if your knowledge or other work skills remotely resemble your lack of spelling and/or editing abilities, have you considered that your cut in pay may somewhat be related to these deficiencies.

And obviously, the same would apply to kashishraj.

Richard. While I do appreciate the humor, I think there are ways to get your point across without sounding like a complete douche.

From my point of view, this whole situation is related to artificially inflated salaries. I was already quite surprised in year 2000 when I found out that engineers with 5 years of experience could get 120K. Imagine my reaction when I was told that, in my area, experienced machine operators (high school degree) working for Rio-Tinto Alcan can get above 100K (including overtime) annually. These numbers don't make any sense and I guess that management finally realized it.

@Education If you are talking about Canadian engineers, your engineers earning 120K after 5 years are definitely a niche example.

I have worked in IT/Tech for the past 20 years. Salaries are the same or lower now than in 1995. But the cost of living, especially housing, has risen astronomically. As a result, people in my field are much poorer than 15 year ago. IT/Tech is always held up as an example of a well-paying field. In Canada, it definitely isn't. It pays much better in the US.

@SMS: I'll admit that I used one of my more striking examples to make a point. However, engineers making above 90K after 5 years was pretty common. I'm not sure how it works in the IT field, but I heard high salaries for database administrators and such. And this is sometimes after spending 1 year at a technical college and acquiring a few years of experience. Of course, this last example does not come from my personal experience but rather from stories I've heard.

@Education...I am an engineer of 23 years with the same company and make $240,000 per year (give or take). Considering my level of responsibility, and my contributions to my company's bottom line, I can make a good argument to earn more. There are companies in the US and overseas that have tried to entice me with higher salaries, but I prefer to live and work in Canada. My company also offers me stock options as a further incentive to stay. They cannot afford to lose my knowledge, specialized skills, and experience to their competitors. If I worked for a much smaller company with lower revenues, or in a different industry, then I would certainly expect my salary to be much, much lower than what it is now. Companies are going to pay you what you and/or your job are worth. They certainly will not pay you more, and if they pay you less, they run the risk of losing employees or a hard time of finding skilled ones. In my profession, there is not a surplus of skilled people out there, so if my company would go under or lay me off, my toughest task would be to choose which other company I should jump to, and likely without losing a day of work.

@Doc: Perhaps we come from two different engineering industries because we don't end up with the same conclusions.

In my field, you don't get paid what you deserve, you get paid what you ask for. That's why you have people who develop bad systems and who hold the company hostage by making the details barely comprehensible and who get paid more than they should. As a new grad, I used to tell our team leader"that seems wrong, that's going to give you problems and that is not optimal" (he'd agree and fix it)... yet he was the lucky man who was making 120K after 5 years.

It seems to me that management often thinks of "number of years" as being equal to "skilled/knowledgeable" and it's not always true. Once again, that could be why people are overpaid (at least in my industry - microelectronics).

education... there's also a certain thing called "paying your dues". I certainly won't speak to a field (engineering) which I have no knowledge of, however, even a graduating 1st-2nd year medical, legal or other professional cannot expect to be earning as much as a tenured doctor or lawyer. And I only use those 2 fields as an example. Unless you're a prodigy (and even so) being skilled and knowledgeable coming out of university doesn't necessarily equate to 5-10 years of field experience.

I agree with Doc that smaller companies/organizations may not be able to offer the same salaries/benefits as bigger ones. And when someone is attempting to or re-entering the workfield with a new company, there may also be a few ?? regarding why the prospective employee was laid off in the first place... or why the company he/she worked for was downsized or went out of business. Was it possibly due to the "bottom line" performance of certain employees. owner/management incompetence or just bad luck. Again, it speaks to paying your dues or proving your long-term consistent worth. The $$$ and other benefits i.e. vacation/sick leave and other perks should come through at a later time.

Laid off workers will be making less because of the global economy. For instance, a food manufacturer closed their plant 2-3 years ago in southwest ontario. Approx. 400+ workers were laid-off and devastated a small town. The reasons - the employees really liked working there with many employees working there for 15+ years at $21+ per hour. No employment turnover. The plant also needed more investment to stay competitive. Instead, it was cheaper to close the plant and go in the US where employees get paid $13 per hour. The laid-off workers won't find a similar plantnearby in Canada and make $20/hr. They will need to start off at a much lower salary and likely move from this town. This scenario is commonplace and will continue with companies wanting to make more profits for their shareholders. Ironically, our pension plans are invested into these companies since we are the shareholders.