What Goes Up Comes Down – Even Salaries

You’ve heard the old phrase: “What goes up must come down”, but most people don’t like to think that it would ever apply to their salary level, and in most cases – and in a “normal” economy, it wouldn’t. However, in this “great recession”, many people are seeing just that – a lower salary than a year or two earlier, especially new college graduates. The declines, seemingly small at first glance, could have even greater negative consequences, according to a report published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

Its Fall 2009 Salary Survey report shows that 2009 graduates with bachelor’s degrees received an average starting salary offer of $48,633 or 1.2 percent below the average $49,224 offered to new graduates a year earlier.

Parts excerpted from the December 2009 issue of HR Magazine.

Companies Plan to Unfreeze Salaries

About half of all large U.S. companies that froze salaries for 2009 plan to unfreeze them for 2010, and more than a third of companies that reduced 401(k) matching contributions plan to restore them, according to a survey by consultancy Watson Wyatt. Once reason for loosening their belts: Officials at 37 percent of the companies think that their financial setbacks have bottomed out, compared with 27 percent who thought so in August.

Excerpted from the December 2009 issue of HR Magazine.

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