Just a couple of interesting data points that could be indicative of a slightly tighter labor market finally putting some upwards pressure on wages:
The health insurer is increasing its minimum hourly wage to $16, starting in April, as a way to attract and retain talented employees. And it will lower the cost of health benefits for some staffers next year.
Aetna is following several other companies that have recently raised pay amid a nationwide stagnation in wages.
About 5,700 Aetna (AET) employees in the U.S. will benefit from the raise, mainly in customer service, claims administration and billing.
I don’t know if Aetna is making an efficiency wage play in that it is willing to pay above market rates for its industry in order to skim the cream of the crop of customer service reps and first line claims adjusters or if the products have gotten so complex that the only way they can get reasonably competent people to stay is to pay them better.
On a personal note, I had my six month review for my new position and besides being told that the phrase “V should rip your spine out and piss on your grave if you ask her team to do that in this timeframe….” is not appropriate albeit accurate language for a conversation with a senior VP, I was told that HR is recasting pay bands for different job categories. Since I’m a new guy at my job category, I came in at the bottom of the band. I’ll be getting a bump sometime in the next couple of checks. This is the first system wide adjustment in five years. It is a general increase on the bottom of most job categories. The only category that had a reduced floor is the positions where affair partners are hidden.
On another personal note, my replacement at my old job has been hired. There was a while where my old manager could find people willing to take my old salary, or people with the skills to be able to be trained to do what I did. They could not find both. Finally they decided to pay for skills, so I’ve been sitting with J a lot in the past couple of weeks trying to get her up to speed even as her starting salary is 15% more than my ending salary for the same position. She owes me coffee, which I’m going to collect now.
Patricia Kayden
I wonder how much of the pay raise that AETNA employees are seeing is related to Obamacare. Looks like President Obama may deserve another non-sarcastic “Thanks Obama”.
Mudge
Ahhh…new hires. I remember back when I taught at a university, one of my colleagues was hired and received assurance that if anyone new was hired at a higher salary than his current salary, he’d get a raise. Well such an individual was hired and my colleague went to the dean, who refused the raise and was quoted as saying, “An oral promise isn’t worth the paper it is written on.” My colleague left for greener pastures the next year.
Baud
Since Newsmax is only available on the mobile site now, here’s your headline of the day.
horatius
Coffee? I would not have settled for coffee. A beer minimum.
Richard Mayhew
@horatius: I try not to drink beer at 7:30 in the morning… beer is involved in the training pay-out agreement
gogol's wife
Keeping BJ discourse out of the workplace environment is a difficult struggle, I know myself.
MrSnrub
It feels like the only way to get a real pay raise any more is to get a new job or a promotion. Annual raises are at or below inflation.
elmo
@MrSnrub: Wait, a promotion is supposed to come with a raise? I need to go talk to HR…
Lee
The new hire getting X more than the previous person is very common in the IT world. There is a reason the phrase ‘I wanted a raise so I quit’ is so common.
The company I work at is actually a pretty good company to work for as long as if you understand that if you want a substantial raise you have to go work somewhere else for awhile then get rehired back for the pay increase you wanted initially.
Edmund Dantes
Even promotions are no guarantee. I got one last year that came with a 5% raise. No where commiserate with the increase in workload, responsibility, and harder grading system that go with the higher job.
My favorite is my job recently put out a document explaining compensation. One showed a table with 3 people, location in pay band, and job review level. They said that a person with exceeds expectations, but in top quarter of band would see a 2% increase. a person at the bottom quarter with a meets or exceeds would see like 8%.
Really perverse incentives there. Not sure why that was a good message to put into a company wide document. I think they are for a rude awakening as the job market improves.
Elmo
@Edmund Dantes:
Seriously, I was promoted in June, given a direct report to manage, increased my workload and responsibilities, and now I travel so much I’ve accrued a quarter of a million Marriott points in less than a year.
No raise.
I intend to address that this year.
Barry
@Edmund Dantes: “I think they are for a rude awakening as the job market improves.”
It will be a very, very rare company which won’t be.
Kristine
That was true at my former (big pharma) company as well. Some folks were able to move up by staying inside, but they had to move to new fields–frex, lab to plant or reg affairs.
ruemara
It would be good if the wage depression is ending. I was told if I play my cards right & we’re bought, I could be looking at a raise, maybe even $17 an hour. Took all my patience to say that $17 for a marcom manager with a track record of 97% increase in sales across the board and increased media visibility is colloquially, bullshit. But that’s usually what I’m offered.
I’m looking to have some leverage, for once.
japa21
A couple comments on what Aetna is doing.
The CEO traveled to the Jacksonville, FL office to announce the raising of the minimum wage and a change in the cost of insurance for lower family income employees.
One of the employees who was there got up during the question and anser period. He was a youngish Latino who stated he didn’t have a question, but, in a very emotional voice, thanked the CEO for doing this, as, for him, it means he can start working on some of the dreams he has.
There are some employees who, it should be noted, are not really all that happy with this as it “took them years” to reach that pay level and these other people just get bumped up to that level without earning it.” I am assuming those employees are all Republicans.
On the benefit issue, what it means is that if a family is under 3 times the US poverty level based upon family size, they can get the top offered health insurance for the cost of the lowest coverage policy.
askew
@MrSnrub:
I work in the same industry as Richard and my large employer has already starting telling managers that there are no raises again this year even though we made record profits and our CEO made untold millions. This is year 4 of no companywide raises while the people at the top make major money.
The only way to get more money here is to move to upper management where money is free-flowing or to get a new internal job.
At this point, I’d settle for not having to be forced to go through the annual review process and goal setting BS just to be told that there is no money.
Goblue72
@askew: that’s awful
Dan
@askew:
have you been jobsearching? That’s clearly unacceptable.
askew
@Goblue72:
Yep it is.
askew
@Dan:
No, I haven’t been. I’ll need to in the next year. It sucks because I really like my job. It is a perfect fit for me and I get to set my own hours and work at home, which I love. But, the pay situation is at the point where it is really hurting so I’ll have to do something. I am waiting until after my review this year so I am good and steamed. I always interview better when I am really fired up to leave my current job.
Barbara
Richard, I sure as H* hope you got more than a 15% raise in your new position. If you didn’t, you are a lot more Zen than I could ever be.
No raises to be seen in this household for a good long time, either. But thankfully, the era of furloughs is over. When my husband had to take every Friday — and then in a small improvement, every other Friday — off without pay, that was a big cut. Of course the workload was never adjusted, all the unrealistic due dates stayed the same, making them even more unrealistic.
bin Lurkin'
The only thing that will bring upward pay pressure is when it becomes blatantly clear to the upper management that their own increases of compensation will not happen unless and until the peons get a few more grains of rice in their bowls.
There is a huge reservoir of people with plenty of skills out there who simply gave up looking for employment and are making their way as best they can in the informal off the books economy.
Keeping it in perspective, I was reading the other day that 4% or less unemployment may be needed to start wages back up, we have seen 4% unemployment once since 1975 and never below.
Tinare
My co-worker retired this year and in order to bring in someone with an ability to hit the ground running and to meet the new person’s salary requirments, the position need to be upgraded to another level. I was told this and also told that I would be promoted. There hasn’t been a promotion yet. The new person started in the middle of October.
Additionally my boss is not a subject matter expert in our field — he was brought in for his administrative skills — so he asks me all the time to review his work or answer questions on his behalf.
I am also expected to train and act as superviser to the new person who is a level above me, makes more, and has one week more vacation than I do. I keep being told that my boss is reminding his superiors that “they need to do something for me.” But I’m still starting to feel like a smuck.
Ruckus
@Tinare:
Had a management position once that required a lot of different skills besides managing and a lot of time. Several yrs I averaged 3000 hrs a yr but that was OK I was salaried, so no overtime. Part was the number of hats that I had to wear and one in particular was getting out of hand. Asked my boss and he said there is no way to hire anyone, suck it up. About 5 months later I went over his head and asked the CEO. They hired another person. My boss was a dick and didn’t have any idea how to add a position so I think he just never even asked. I started going over his head for everything after that, as well as working feverishly on my exit strategy.
boatboy_srq
I can’t speak to that, but I do have a friend who’s working with a contractor on some VA phone bank, where the salaries are higher than Aetna’s floor – and the contractor is still having difficulty finding people smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time.
@Tinare: Sounds like the best thing they can do for you is a nice comfy severance package.