San Francisco Chronicle (February 23)
“For American tech companies seeking talent, Ukraine’s highly educated population, with heavy emphasis on sought-after STEM specialties, is appealing, as is the fact that salaries there are about one-third to one-quarter of those for comparable jobs in the Bay Area.” Now these tech companies (including Google, Snap, Oracle, Grammarly, Ring, and JustAnswer) are urgently “revising contingency plans to protect their workers and businesses.”
Tags: Bay Area, Contingency plans, Educated, Google, JustAnswer, Oracle, Protect, Salaries, Snap, STEM, Talent, Tech companies, Ukraine
LA Times (July 16)
“The financial crisis created by the pandemic prompted executives at hundreds of America’s largest publicly traded companies to voluntarily lower their own base salaries. They made a point of announcing these cuts in news releases and earning calls with analysts.” In many cases, this was a gimmick. In one egregious case, Christopher Nassetta, Hilton’s Chief Executive “opted to forgo his entire base salary for the rest of the year,” amid furloughs and job cuts, but his “compensation package more than doubled to $55.9 million in 2020, compared with $21.4 million in 2019.”
Tags: Analysts, Earning calls, Executives, Financial Crisis, Gimmick, Hilton, Nassetta, News releases, Pandemic, Publicly traded, Salaries
Chicago Tribune (September 26)
“The gap between the haves and have-nots in the United States grew last year to its highest level in more than 50 years of tracking income inequality.” Demographics is one of the drivers. “On one side, at the peak of their earnings, are baby boomers who are nearing retirement, if they haven’t already retired. On the other side are millennials and Gen Zers, who are in the early stages of their work life and have lower salaries.”
Tags: Baby boomers, Demographics, Earnings, Gap, Gen Zers, Income inequality, Millennials, Retirement, Salaries, U.S., Work
LA Times (November 12)
“Until women are once again directing, writing and producing the same number of films as men, and until they’re earning the same salaries, Hollywood’s power imbalance—and its sexual predator problems—won’t be solved.”
Tags: Directing, Films, Hollywood, Men, Power imbalance, Producing, Salaries, Sexual predator, Women, Writing
Washington Post (June 16)
“U.S. employers now have more job openings than ever previously recorded,” but there’s a catch. “The average time required to fill a job opening has also just reached an all-time high: 27.3 days, or almost a month,” and it’s over 2 months (64 days) at the biggest companies. Unfortunately, nobody’s sure of the reason behind this or the implications the lag may have for the employment picture or, indeed, the overall economy.” Knowing why might explain why salaries aren’t going up, when they might or if they will.
Washington Post (December 11)
“To get a taste for the havoc possible in today’s digital world, consider the recent cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.” The massive 100 terabytes of stolen data has revealed “embarrassing details about executive salaries and secret movie negotiations—but the hack is also a worrisome moment in cybersecurity…. It is now a fact that many of the world’s most powerful nations are building cyberforces, either directly or with mercenary proxies. This is creating a cyberspace with plenty of risks.”
Tags: Cyberattack, Cyberforces, Cybersecurity, Digital, Embarrassing, Executives, Havoc, Mercenaries, Movies, Negotiations, Risks, Salaries, Sony, Stolen data
New Yorker (October 21)
“In 1965, C.E.O.s at big companies earned, on average, about twenty times as much as their typical employee. These days, C.E.O.s earn about two hundred and seventy times as much.” Two close that gap, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) will require “companies to disclose the ratio of the C.E.O.’s pay to that of the median worker.” This is unlikely to help. “Even as companies are disclosing more and more, executive pay keeps going up and up. This isn’t a coincidence: the drive for transparency has actually helped fuel the spiraling salaries…. It gives executives a good idea of how much they can get away with.”
Tags: C.E.O., Disclosure, Executives, Median worker, Salaries, SEC, Transparency
