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PaperclipPerfector  21d ago (text post)   26710 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 30, 2024

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Aren't you assuming the employer was positioned to pay $105k in the first place? It may be, but not every company is capable of paying employees their market price.

Employees that work 10% harder don't necessarily create 10% more value.

If they can't pay 105k, they either don't really need that employee or they're in dire financial straits. Consider the cost of an $15k/year to retain a competent, productive employee willing to upskill, versus the saving $15k/year but incurring the cost of:

[a team short one engineer for 3-6 months (time to become fully productive, maybe more) + X months to find and vet a suitable candidate + >90k salary because the last guy negotiates his salary two years ago and the market raise has risen since then]

Not to mention you're taking a gamble on the new hire, who despite vetting may turn out to be incompetent, lazy, and/or an asshole. Maybe I'm missing something, but it sure seems easier to just pay 15k and avoid all that pain, plus you might even get some loyalty in return. Certain members of my team are fairly loyal to me since I go to bat for them regularly.

Hiring and onboarding is expensive. If you can't pay an employee 10% more then you certainly can't afford to replace them.

If you can't pay an employee 10% more then you certainly can't afford to replace them.

There are two different meanings of "can't" here, as the exiting worker likely intuits. It turns out companies can often afford to hire replacements when they "can't" give raises to existing employees. This is because when they're hiring replacements they're considering the consequences of not getting the work done versus the cost of the replacemenet, whereas when they're considering raises they're considering the consequences of paying more money versus just... not.

It may be, but not every company is capable of paying employees their market price.

Then that's their problem. There are a lot of things I can't afford at the market price; I don't buy them. Being able to pay market wages is part of running a business, the same as being able to buy inputs and deliver products to customers. Companies that are able to do this make money and companies that aren't go out of business. It's basic free market economics.

Of course.

That said, jobs aren't really fungible though? People take jobs for all sorts of reasons, including pay.

People take jobs for all sorts of reasons, including pay.

"Management was recently taken over by a bloodsucking hedge fund" is unlikely to create very many reasons to stay though -- if the also won't pay (the newly trained) market value, it's probably just the cherry on top.

It doesn't matter to the employee whether it's worth it to the employer to pay him the $105k. As long as someone else is willing to pay it, it makes sense for the employee to leave.

But the phenomenon of "I can make 1.03X by staying, and 1.20X by leaving" is so common in tech (and often applies to employees going both ways between similar jobs in two companies) that most of the time it probably is employers taking advantage of employee reluctance to switch jobs rather than employee cost exceeding value.

It doesn't matter to the employee whether it's worth it to the employer to pay him the $105k. As long as someone else is willing to pay it, it makes sense for the employee to leave.

Yes, I was not quibbling with that at all.

But the phenomenon of "I can make 1.03X by staying, and 1.20X by leaving" is so common in tech (and often applies to employees going both ways between similar jobs in two companies) that most of the time it probably is employers taking advantage of employee reluctance to switch jobs rather than employee cost exceeding value.

That's plausible but I guess I'm not sure it's that common. A lot of employers are just bad at making money, and this is the norm, and they're not positioned to pay people their market value.

Whenever I've been privy to this sort of discussion (which is not often to be fair), the thinking from management was "why should we pay him $x, we already have him for $y" (where x > y). They were happy to pay a new employee the higher rate, but disliked paying market rate for an employee they already had.

If you need an AWS capable employee for your business but can't afford to pay close to market wages for one you can hardly expect them to stay out of the goodness of their heart, and should probably re-evaluate your business model.

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