I had my yearly review today and it went well, until my program manager told me what the standard raises would be this year for anyone in the “raise pool” (1-3% as mentioned in the title). I work at a mid-sized IT company as a network engineer on a government contract. Somehow, they believe it’s acceptable to potentially offer employees a 1% annual raise in a year where our purchasing power has decreased by over 8%. How would this incentivize anyone to do their best work? I’ve made about $70k since February 2021.
Luckily I’ve planned on our raises being a joke, so I’ve earned two more industry certs in the last month, brushed up my resume and started applying for dozens of open networking and security positions in the last couple weeks.
Why do companies think they can offer these (in my opinion) insulting raises? Honestly, our turnover rate has been fairly high lately but they’re bringing in new employees left and right. It’s possible they can afford to lowball current employees, knowing there’s a pool of applicants who will accept $50 – $70k for their first decent IT role. Hell, they might even be offering new employees more than current employees are making and I’d have no idea.
Anyway, salaries in corporate America are garbage and it’s now 100% apparent that the best way to get a significant raise every year is to switch companies. I’m already getting calls for $90 – $110k jobs, just no interviews yet. One day I’d like to work somewhere that actually values me and incentivizes me to stay and grow. Although, ultimately the goal is to make my own living and not be subjected to this bullshit.
Best of luck to everyone out there. The past couple years have been rough.