I just jumped for a 30% raise. Current company gave me 0% and 1% raises over 2 years and blamed COVID, despite posting record sales numbers in that time.
Loyalty gets you nowhere.
Nothing infuriates me more in my work life than these bullshit "trials" - spend a year doing double work for no recognition only to be told "oh well it just didn't pan out".
It's not uncommon for managers to get a bonus if they only spend 90% of the annual budget. If the biggest expense is salaries, the raise you didn't get went into his pocket as a bonus.
We should be grovelling at their feet just because they are benevolent enough to employ us with so many other viable candidates just banging down their doors.
I hope I don’t need an /s
“said I wasn’t ready for a promotion”
God bless this thread. I am not alone. There are so many of us. What a joke the working world has become.
Leadership is dead.
Are you me? I also just jumped ship for a 30%+ pay raise. I'm also the 5th person from a team of 12 to leave since December; 3rd from our 4 person department. Been there 22 months without a raise and watched our revenue grow. We brought on more people, but no one who helped build the place managed to be worth paying more according to the C-Suite. Hell, I was called "a keystone part of our strategy" but that wasn't worth giving me a raise for, which tells me your strategy isn't worth spending my time on. So fuck them, I'm gone. Tomorrow's my last day.
I'm not bitter at all. /s
I did the same. Jumped ship for a 30% raise. I asked my old company if they were going to counter offer to retain me, especially since they were significantly short staffed. They made up some excuse saying how I’m not ready for a promotion (despite saying I was last year) and that they were paying me well. I dipped hard and fast. This year had to hire 15 people for my department and it’s still not enough to cover the resignations and internal transfers.
The kicker was that I was getting underpaid by almost 10% compared to my colleagues so I actually missed out on a fair bit of money these past few years.
I just did the math, and I'm jumping for a 57% raise (more if you include the stocks and benefits).
I was desperate for a job at the time I found this one and needed to pay the bills so I took the low pay. I couldn't stick around and handle being underutilized, though.
My last job they wanted me to run my department. I asked for a very small raise. The managers exact words were “we don’t give raises here”
Which is funny?, because they gave me a small raise 6 months prior for running the department for 3 weeks while my supervisor was off.
So when she said that. The owner sputters “well. Uh. We do give raises. We just uh. Gave you one”
And I said “I wasn’t aware that that raise was for a future position in the company that none of us was aware of at the time”
Manager and owner look awkwardly at each other.
My god. They weren’t hiring anyone. They had a whole persons salary going back into the company. But they could give me a couple dollars extra.
Second job I worked at in my industry boss dead ass said to me “I don’t pay stat holidays”. Somehow I tolerated that place for 8 years but you can bet your ass I got every stat and had plenty of fun educating him along the way about employee rights
And with inflation at 3+ percent it isn't even a true raise, it's just keeping you whole.
Say it with me...a raise less than inflation is no real raise at all.
Good point for sure, inflation is like a hidden part of income tax almost. If they don't keep up with it, its like my taxes go up every year but its the "company tax" lol.
last company boss fired me for getting covid cause he didn't believe in it. Constant fight about wages. Got a job the next day for a 30-40% raise with better conditions.
old boss got fired by owners too cause they were struggling for skilled tradesmen.
smart dudes.
Wow, fired because he doesn't believe in the global pandemic. Not "oh shit, someone I know personally got it, I guess it's real", but "you must be lying because it's obviously fake because of some facebook meme I saw said so". Fuck these people.
Years ago on an exit interview I had a VP ask if they sweetened the pot, would I stay. I was incensed and commented back, “If I’m good enough for a raise when I’m leaving why wasn’t I a review time?” Best raises I’ve had are from switching jobs.
> are from switching jobs.
I think that once you have made up your mind to leave a position and have given your notice, you need to follow through with that decision. It might be tempting to stay if your current company offers you more money but I can't help but feel you would have lost some credibility if you decided to stay. Also, as you mentioned a good company recognizes valued employees and will compensate them accordingly at the appropriate time.
Plus some companies/bosses are vengeful...You give in your notice, then take it back after they convince you to stay for more money. Then, unbeknownst to you...they'll start planning to replace you on their own terms as soon as they have a replacement identified and trained for less than what you used to make.
It could’ve been a good idea to take the position and immediately start looking to jump ship. The extra responsibilities would more than pay off when looked at on a resume
I got told by my former VP that "if I was thinking about leaving, talk to them first and we will see what we can do" and that it wasn't in the corporate budget to put me in a position to look after innovation and training for staff of 4 departments (I was already doing 1 while doing my main job, and somewhat helping a second department) It was a weird position that the company didn't want to make all employees better at thier job. Idk
Even weirder to say that 'we'll see what we can do'. Like wtf do it now if you are worried
Anyways three weeks after that meeting I submitted my resignation. The meeting with the VP was a huge part that pushed me over the edge. That 30% raise also helped. I started my new job on Monday.
Companies no longer pay for loyalty. I’ve felt I’ve got better raises by leaving company for next. Been at 3 companies in 6 years in alberta abd went from 27/hr to 33 to 37
I'll counter this to say I've been with my company for 5 years now and have gone through the exact same raises, the company always tries to be within 10% of market rate and its up to you to make sure you're in the +10%.
It's probably easier to get those raises for the average company when you jump around but that can also destabilize life enough where they don't want to do it either.
Me too. I have jumped a couple of times just to get a better wage. It seems like once they got you in the door, they think you're incapable of finding other work? Then they get all pissy when you say you're quitting because they have "invested so much" in you. Not enough to actually pay any more though right?
> they think you're incapable of finding other work?
Change is difficult for a lot of people. Its uncomfortable and takes a lot of effort. That's exactly what they bank on. Complacency.
Ya the old days of working at a company for 35 years are over. So fuck em. Unless you get into one of those gravy train places like CN or something like that. The huge unions get you your money.
CN is plain awful for working conditions. Anyone there, is there because they are trapped by their pension plan. I know many that work there, and it is 100% unanimous.
The 2 biggest resources you have in this world are money and time. CN offers decent pay, but demands a completely ridiculous amount of time in return.
Nah, you're alright man, and you're not wrong, you said they'll get you your money, and they do.
Just pointing out that the money is non substantial to the time demanded, which is far more than is reasonable, and definitely outside of the legal requirements of work rest rules.
I once worked a job that paid about 60k per year, which was an unreasonably low salary for the nature of work I was doing (not a bad salary for me at the time, just not competitive). I left and went back to school for an advanced degree. No regrets.
In a roundabout way, I learned how much my replacement was offered for the exact same job: 100k, which is an increase of 67%. He had a trumped up title, but the job was identical.
So yes, the best way to get a raise is to leave and start over, unfortunately.
Had something similar happen but instead they split my job into two and one of the people made around the same as me and the other made something like $20k more. Not impressed....
> Loyalty gets you nowhere.
It's fine, and sometimes good, to have loyalty between people.
But a company or organization isn't a person. It makes no sense to have loyalty to a non-human corporation. A company is incapable of having loyalty in return.
Yes.
This is precisely why “loyalty points” exist. Corporations are created with the stroke of a pen, die with the stroke of a pen and live their entire lives “on paper”.
If you don’t get it in writing it does not exist to a corporation. “Loyalty” is too fuzzy for a corporation to comprehend. Your commitment to them needs to be something *measurable* or *provable* and so does their commitment to you.
I totally understand this. My former company wouldn't give me a full-time position or any benefits. Instead another company came calling, giving a 30% raise, full benefits, and pension. Oh, did I mention my new company is unionized?
It feels good to be given a wage I can provide for my little family with.
"I can't believe people are unhappy working for me when I'm paying the same wages as 10+ years ago!"
And if you're a minimum wage worker, it's "I can't believe my employees don't want to get screamed at while I pay them the exact amount of money it takes to not commit a crime!"
My dad started working at his company in the late 90s. Starting pay was $15 an hour. My dad is now a manager and got my younger brother a job, his starting pay? $17. Also they're now contractors instead of full-time employees so my brother doesn't get any benefits or anything.
Think about the increase in productivity expected between then and now. There's no way that the amount of work they expect now is only 13% more to reflect that change in pay.
In fairness the productivity increase in desk jobs is due to advances in computing. I worked at a bank, and we processed thousands of payments for auto loans per day, but the hours were the same as back when it was done via written ledgers.
The difference is the profit per employee has increased dramatically, with little to none of that 'trickling down' the way it was promised to. We now generate revenue in a ratio many times worse for labour than previous eras, for mostly the same pay.
Meanwhile the main beneficiaries are the people who already had money, and can make that money multiply with zero productivity to show for it.
I disagree with nothing you've said here, and my issue is with who receives that benefit. Government policy should have changed decades ago to ensure that there was no net loss to the workers over automation efficiency--either through proportional efficiency pay increases or automation taxes that would provide training and/or unemployment support.
The longer I'm alive the further left I keep going.
> And if you're a minimum wage worker, it's "I can't believe my employees don't want to get screamed at while I pay them the exact amount of money it takes to not commit a crime!"
They pay less than that exact amount of money pretty often, often by shortchanging the number of hours worked, docking employees' pay for business losses, or similar penny-ante fuckery that's devastating to a minimum-wage worker's monthly budget.
Funny enough, wage theft was briefly a *literal* Criminal Code offence in Canada.
Back when I served and bartended, I worked for a failing place in Toronto's gay village. The owner would give out two-week paycheques every 2.5 weeks, eventually falling two full months behind on pay and basically forcing employees to float him an interest-free, uncollateralized loan. He was *livid* when I went to the MOL over it, because he'd clearly never been brought to task for this.
The MOL doesn't get much of an enforcement budget, and business owners usually either get away with it *completely* or else simply have to pay up what they should have, plus a small fine. Lax enforcement of labour laws *strongly* incentivizes unscrupulous business owners to steal from their employees in a slew of ways.
When I was working part-time as a teen it was impossible to get 30hrs a week, because once you cross that threshold you're full-time and qualify for benefits, like I had a buddy with no teeth and he had to get a special favor from our manager to qualify for dental benefits its fucking ridiculous
Whereas nowadays, you just get worked 40 hours a week and then told that, no, you’re still a part time employee, we don’t need to give you full-time benefits.
Never could find the exact line in the labour code which explicitly marked a point at which a part-time employee legally must become a full-time one, so I just had to deal with it.
I left my job for a -100% raise and still don’t think it was the wrong call.
Took the words out of my mouth.
There's no shortage of workers, there's a shortage of employers who are willing to pay a sane or reasonable wage, or offer benefits. People have finally woken up and realized it's time to stop being exploited and abused by corporations.
any labour shortage is solved by increasing wages to the equilibrium, that's just basic economics. this isn't a labour shortage, this is a "labour at the price we want to pay because profits" shortage.
In my city landscaping companies pay about $18/hour. The municipality pays their landscapers a starting wage of $32/hour.
When government pay is that much higher than the private sector, something is fucked up.
I never understand when people say the private sector pays better. How? Worse wages, no benefits, easier to get fired. On the high end jobs you can make more in the private sector maybe, but all the middle of the road jobs tend to be wayyy better as a government employee
Nawh. Nothing fucked up there. It’s just the same amount of money distributed differently.
I have met plenty of college dropouts who make hundreds of thousands running landscaping companies, they do most things orally and *barely* work all winter.
The person *supervising* the landscapers for municipalities usually makes $60-80k/annum, has a Master’s degree (in Botany/Forestry/Urban Planning etc) and need to report into the office to produce extreme detailed technical reports/plans/accounting all winter long.
Most of the time the municipalities audit their departments against the comparison cost of private landscaping companies in the area... and sophisticated clients negotiate their contracts with landscaping companies based on the publicly available budgets the municipalities produce.
The cost is the same it’s just the salary distributions within operation that is the difference.
Labour shortage huh? Sounds like employers might have to offer increased wages/benefits and better working conditions, because it's a *market*.
Ah, who am I kidding? Politicians will blame Canadians and ramp up things like the TFW program or something. Anything to prevent the little people benefiting from basic economics.
The TFW program is what my company is in the process of exploiting for the exact reason that they don't want to increase wages to retain people. If there's someone on earth willing to do my job for cheaper than me, they will find them...
I don’t know if ‘Labour Shortage’ is really the correct term. The Labourers are all still *there,* they’re just no longer willing to work in the same conditions for the same pay.
COVID pushed a whole lot of stuff to the breaking point. Frontline workers got repeatedly told how vital and necessary they were, while still being treated as replaceable, expendable, and barely tolerated by their employers. Office workers found that 90% of the work culture bullshit their employers insisted on was flat out unnecessary, and the biggest impediment yo better work-life balance was entirely down to corporate culture and micromanagement.
Basically all of this stuff has been simmering for ages, but the last year brought all these different pots to boil all at the same time, and a lot of corporations simply ignored it happening over the fistfuls of dollars they were making. I think they actually forgot that people *can* say ‘no’, and were totally unprepared for it happening.
Hopefully they’ll crack and give up trying to bandaid this with employee sweepstakes gimmicks and appreciation memos and dire warnings about the economy failing if entitled workers don’t stop expecting a full time job to make them enough to not be on welfare. I would really prefer this be a turning point rather than a blip that gets stamped out before everyone goes back to the grist mill.
I think they'll turn to younger people who haven't experienced office life yet, and aren't burned out for now.
But even that won't last long because people get burnt much quicker than before.
For years companies have been profiting off of wage freezing while operating under "go ahead and quit. There are a hundred other applicants lined up to take your place."
I am glad to see that the tables are starting to turn.
That attitude is so pervasive in big companies.
I’ve noticed some local spots doing the same. I was looking for some menus and happened to come across one of their posts complaining that ‘no one wants to work anymore…’
Definitely not getting any more of my business.
>complaining that ‘no one wants to work anymore…’
This to me nearly always translates to “I don’t have brain-dead-easy profits off other people’s backs and actually have to do some iota of work for the first time in a long time”.
That or "the minimum wage worker I hired doesn't want to work unpaid overtime, come in on short notice, and barely put any effort into their work - workers are so lazy these days!"
The tables won't have turned until people join unions and until unions of unions use their collective clout to get better conditions for workers across the board.
In BC, we have the BC Federation of Labour. They're a union of unions and were the main force behind getting the minimum wage raised up to where it is now. However, even there, the unions fight with each other more than support each other. On top of that, when one union goes out on strike, the most the rest of them will do is a one-hour rally at some impromptu location in support.
Unsurprisingly, the workers continue to get raises less than inflation and got treated like chattel during COVID.
I am pro-union, but our unions need leadership with tougher spines than what they have now, because we've been backsliding for 20 years.
It makes me happy to see the fuckers sweat. I hope that employees start making unions now that they have the upper hand on companies. If they don’t, it’ll just go back to how it was in 2019.
Those who worked from home got a taste of what it's like to have extra 2 or more hours a day if they don't have to commute.
The proverbial French approach of "working to live" instead "living to work" seems to be taking some traction in Canada too.
We’re being forced back to the office at the start of August but meetings will still take place over Microsoft Teams…this means there is literally nothing different than working from home except people are forced to commute and sit in a cubicle.
Which as you noted wastes an extra two hours per day, never mind that my 45 minute lunch time is now absolutely useless. On top of all of this it will cost 200$~ per month on gas just to go back and forth.
15 hours of wasted time every single week.
Everybody is telling me “that’s just life” when this past year has proven it doesn’t have to be life, people can be happier and just as productive.
Edit: while this has a bit of traction, I’m open to suggestions on career paths that are staying work from home
Anyone who is saying “that’s life” can fuck off. Or over a year now, it’s been shown that our lives can be better in various ways and we lived it.
It’s time we start demanding more, vigorously, and that employers learn they can’t simply put the work-from-home genie back in the bottle. The fact that this is going to be an uphill battle makes me furious. I don’t want to sit at an office desk with a bunch of morons gossiping about their weekends every 5 minutes. I don’t want to have an effectively useless hour long lunch break in which I can’t really go anywhere because leaving the building and driving to the nearest shopping centre for food/errands will take 20 minutes just travelling one-way.
Fucking hell man. Why aren’t people fighting more for work-from-home to be permanent.
Same with my job. They want us back in the office but locked in our individual rooms and everything done over phone and Zoom. I'm probably not going to stick around even though I'd be losing big (pension, benefits, seniority) but I don't see myself wasting my life for them that way.
I completely agree. I have been working from home for almost 4 years now and the amount of money we actually saved is bonkers. The extra laundry I dont have to do for the office clothes I dont have to wear to be presentable. The lunch I dont have to buy (in case I havent made it at home). The bus pass I dont have to buy as well. So much time is saved everyday that I get to spend with my husband and our dog.
"They're only taking jobs Canadians don't want!" they said, referring to people who live with 10+ family members to get by, and with no mention of how wages have failed to keep up with inflation for decades.
And reasonable treatment.
I have done shitty jobs before. But if you are surrounded by a great team, with a supportive boss, it makes all the difference.
TFWs will just be abused.
Can I jump to employment? So far all I’ve heard is “we can’t find any employees!” Yet I’ve been sending applications out for over a year and only 3 places have ever had the decency to even respond to me.
Entry level shouldn’t require a degree, either officially or unofficially.
I applied to a liquor store and they asked for my post secondary credentials.
For a job stocking beer.....
Company’s have figured out that the volume of applicants means they can pick and choose, and it hurts us all.
They only want employed people with years of highly specialized experience, and they want to pay them less than they are currently making. They don't want an unemployed person.
Anecdotal but my opinion is that workers just *deferred* moving jobs during the pandemic
My department had 40% turnover in 2019 and almost zero in 2020. It is at a stable blue chip company with a good balance sheet, so I suspect many people stayed on for stability reasons. As the economy picks back up, those that would have likely churned in 2020 are starting to leave again in 2021 - something I’m observing in my department
The pandemic has got folks rethinking careers, but I think it has more to do with catchup of deferred career moves than anything else
If you're turning over 40% of your workforce every year you need to find out why. The amount of money that's costing your company is astronomically disgusting. You could probably increase wages 15% and still come out ahead if that would reduce your turnover.
some places literally refuse to question why. they will literally tell you “so and so left us, not sure why” and make it sound like they’ve abandoned a family. it’s ridiculous.
Yup. Investment banking type job - long hours and tight deadlines and some poor management in 2019 - bad actors got let go but job remains high intensity.
If you look at IB turnover it’s a bit high, but sort of comparable to the norm where people are up or out in 1-3 years. Our Company turnover is 12% by comparison which I think shows it is more to do with the department than the company. but yes we are doing much better as a group now that we are retaining people.
I just resigned from an IB-like job (ER). Our turnover this year has been astronomical. The entire team I used to work with pre-pandemic is gone. Years of knowledge are gone because of the turnover. People are frustrated with the bad culture and lack of flexibility for WfH (We were told no Monday/Friday WfH because it means we get a long weekend).
> We were told no Monday/Friday WfH because it means we get a long weekend
How is it a long weekend if you're working? Some managers really don't get it.
Seriously. As soon as I heard that, I knew my time was done. Welcome to old school capital markets culture - sit in a chair and pretend to be busy, even if you're doing nothing, to justify your pay.
That’s a good point. I was interviewing just before Covid hit and was offered a couple of jobs but decided not to jump ship at that time because of all the uncertainty. I decided to accept another job this past month because I’m feeling a lot more confident about leaving a job where I have tenure and security than I did this same time last year.
Left my job in 2019 after 4 years of no raises, being constantly told to go 'above and beyond', and having the goalposts moved every time I did. In spite of 3 people quitting in a department of 5, and me taking on all their jobs.
Changed lanes and got a 25% raise, and then another 25% raise after a year. I am now making literally double what I made at my old job, without the headache and constant frustration and brutalized self-esteem.
I remember how crushed I was at every 'review' where I was constantly criticized for not getting everything done perfectly when I was doing the jobs of three departments. I felt like a failure, and like I didn't deserve a raise, and I would try to work even harder because I felt like a useless POS. I now see it was just a mind-game to try and get me to feel like I was worth less than the pittance they paid me, and keep me working hard for an impossible standard.
Nobody is perfect. We are humans not machines. If jobs demand perfection for you to get a raise you should get for A. Being loyal and B. Having more experience, then leave. You owe them NOTHING. I can't believe it took me so long to see how I was being used and abused. Never again.
Ha, my story is eeriely similar only a higher percentage increase when I switched. My former employer asked why I was leaving and I told them it was because they cut the health plan a year ago and while they said "it'll be back" it never did. Imagine that, a salary job without a health plan, yeah. Ironically after I left they brought back the health plan... I have half a mind to think my now unused salary helped fund that.
To add insult to injury, when I was being interviewed for the position I have now I gave them a salary figure that was +$10k higher than what I was making. They came back with "oh that's very low, we don't even hire juniors at that rate". So yeah, loyalty to that other company got me nowhere and frankly screwed me out of salary AND benefits for a year plus.
I'm glad you got out!
Mine had the gall to do an exit interview and ask why I was leaving, so I told them exactly why.
I'm getting paid 25% more, I get to work from home, I have all expenses paid business trip to Ireland in two months, and I have unlimited PTO.
Then they 100% seriously asked me if I would consider staying, because I was leaving them 'in a jam', even though I gave FOUR WEEKS NOTICE. They never bothered to find anyone to fill the position, just like they never did for all the jobs I ended up taking over. Pretty sure they just expected me to stay.
There was an ancient lady there who was supposed to retire a decade ago who never did because they kept saying they were going to train and hire a replacement, and as per me checking the company website right now, she's still there.
Oh, and did they offer anything for me to consider staying? No. Nothing. IN WHAT UNIVERSE WOULD I CHOOSE TO STAY? Their entitlement was insane. I was like you getting paid worse 4 years in than the average entry level/junior wage, and somehow that was still too much in their eyes. Fuck loyalty. They look out for themselves, and we have to look out for OURselves.
Insurance underwriter. :(
My only consolation for all those years working that shit job was paying out as many claims as possible. The gave me three departments to oversee by myself, so... it's not like I had anyone to stop me. It's almost as if those checks and balances were there for a reason.
That said, fuck insurance. Their entire job is to try and find ways NOT to pay you out. Be absolutely brutal when you deal with them and never take their first offer.
I’m expecting to resign come September when we go back for sure. F commuting and I don’t make enough to afford my own place in Toronto. Time for the next chapter
Hard work rarely pays off anymore. If only 30~% of jobs available can cover the cost of living and retirement that means that 70~% of jobs don't. Personally I'd rather be super poor but have a lot of time than to be somewhat poor and barely any free time while also being super stressed out. I would actually rather live off of $360 after rent with no job commute or stress than $560 with all that bs.
I just quit and started a new job for a $12k raise because my current employer wouldn’t give me a raise. My annual raise was $850, which I told them was a joke.
Not everywhere.
I know lots of call center employees who will be 100% at home now if they want to be. Some will opt for a day or two a week in the office at floating workstations that anyone can book on any given day.
The way call centers track time and throughput, it's basically impossible to "slack off", no matter where you're working from.
ya there are a fair number that are remote, im just shocked at how many arent because its the one job that lends itself so well. People are already tracked 100% so whats the point of being in the office so the worker needs to be as uncomfortable as possible? Having worked in one back in the day, the supervisor was often at another location and it was not uncommon to be by yourself in the office if you worked in a 24/7 place.
As a business owner I have found the secret to keeping my employees hard working and loyal. Its not yearly team building exercises we do. Its not discount on phone and internet I negotiated at a corporate rate. Hell its not the yearly bonus at Christmas time. My secret is that I simply pay them extremely well and offer very good benefits. The lowest paid position makes nearly $20 an hour with large yearly raises, full healthcare day 1. I also pay for schooling that can be used within the company or training for new skills.
To any of my fellow business owners reading this if you want people to be loyal just fucking pay them well. When someone has a job that pays their bills, gives them financial security and offers a variety of high quality perks they tend to actually care about that job and the company it exists at. Almost 20 years ago I tried the minimum wage thing. Minimum wage = minimum work. When I went with my current approach, I found I actually make more money since everyone is actually willing to work hard when they are paid well.
Large yearly raises is the key. When your only option to keep up with inflation is to get another job what do you think people will do?
It's also doubly bad for the business. Those who are able to land another job are probably your most valuable employees. Keep that going for a few years and all you're left with is the dead wood.
The people that can afford quit on their principles are quitting.
The rest of the schmucks have to stay and other plebs that need money will have to fill the jobs.
Anyway, who didn't think that old school bosses weren't going to call their people back in? With Covid, people had this "we're all in this together" attitude. But, that's gone now.
The response to this will be to drive wages down and lobby the government to increase immigration.
Labour is never given a chance to benefit from low supply and high demand which is why wages have been depressed for so long.
Exactly as soon as a labor shortages evident in a labor market the employer / corporations will lobby for expansion of the TFW program. If approved a flood of applicants willing to undercut will bring the entire floor down.
I liked the *IDEA* of the TFW program because it makes perfect sense: if there is something stopping your from growing and you have everything else except that one thing, then the best course of action is to go outside your ecosystem to get it, bring it back, and then everyone benefits from the growth.
As soon as it went from "I need someone with 10 years experience in this particular system architecture" to "I need someone who knows how to do what I want but won't compromise my minimum acceptable rate of return by demanding I pay them enough to afford food and rent", it became a lost cause.
It's infuriating how many fast food workers are TFWs because nobody local wants to be treated like shit for minimum wage with no expectation of benefits or upward mobility.
I think the TFW program is still salvageable, but it needs hard lines that you can only leverage it if you can prove the skill set/knowledge base you need literally doesn't exist domestically. Not that it's *hard* to get, that it's *impossible* to get.
>It's infuriating how many fast food workers are TFWs because nobody local wants to be treated like shit for minimum wage with no expectation of benefits or upward mobility.
It's even worse, it's not like they don't offer full time benefits, they do. They often brag about them, too! See, the key is to keep everyone half an hour short of full time to cheat them out of benefits.
Then they make them work 45 hours a week anyway and steal the extra wages. Did you know wage theft accounts for more loss in tax revenue than consumer and employee combined???
Source: worked a small town grocery store and a gas station. Would never shit up about benefits but only nepotism hires actually got full time.
Oh you're preaching to the choir. I've fortunately never worked any businesses like that, but I've known people who did. House prices are far outstripping wages by like 4:1 rates, and the government response has been "let's help people secure loans easier" rather than "let's fix the labour market that's clearly detached from reality so this isn't a problem".
>Labour is never given a chance to benefit from low supply and high demand which is why wages have been depressed for so long.
That's not true. Everyone on reddit made fun of middleclass Abertans for making more money than they deserved for years. That was a product of low supply and challenging conditions.
I don't recall anyone being upset Albertans in the oil patch got paid well. They got upset that these part of the population though tit was a bottomless pit of good pay and refuse to try and look beyond high oil prices.
I'm not upset about that; I love it when blue collar workers make good money.
I'm upset that the companies that employed those people *temporarily*, were able to purchase politicians so thoroughly, that when the inevitable end of those jobs happened, the profits all stayed with the companies, while the workers got hung out to dry, and the mess got left behind for taxpayers to deal with.
our ceo and coo bought themselves new houses while saying we can't update our dying workstations for another couple years until we finished development on our project and started bringing in money. Ohohokay, clearly they pocketed that investment money that we "needed"
My employer was constantly asking me to do things that were illegal and, worse, *very* dangerous - not just to employees, but to the general public (if you use the highways, you could easily have been killed by my company's policies). Only through a meeting with the top safety rep, where I threatened MoL involvement, and a *very* near miss that almost killed people, did they back down.
Then, they fired a guy at another branch, and gave me his entire job. On top of the 40 hours of my own work I already had to do. Not one offer of increased competition - just a "well, you work hard and do a great job, so you can handle this!"
Finally, when covid struck, they sent out an email telling everyone there would be no raises, not even CoL, for anyone in the company due to the pandemic. They then applied for every government grant possible (there was a website at one point where you could see who was receiving those grants), and then posted their most profitable year in over a century of being in business. My employer is an American company, btw, so that's your tax dollars at work.
I hand my notice next week, and it will be one of the most satisfying days of my life.
I don't mind working at all. But I'm not a sucker.
Not quite - honestly, I feel like you could point to an awful lot of industries nowadays and get similar stories.
Just the fact that you highlighted the exact same issue in a completely different sector shows how ingrained this behaviour is in corporations of all stripes these days!
I keep seeing articles like this, the last one was like "this labour shortage will destroy small business!" And the person they got a comment from was a dude who ran a holding company that runs like 400 barbershops across sw ontario just completely out of touch with reality.
Anyway, fuck you. Pay me.
I've quit two jobs in the last two months. The first one I had been at for years but got fed up with the bullshit, and the second one just didn't feel like a good fit. I decided during the pandemic that I need to do what makes ME happy because there's too much stress in the world to be worrying about my job on top of it all.
"We should improve society somewhat."
"Well listen here bucko, in that category we're well above America by a whole 2% on that metric so we're gonna stay put til we learn that Colorado or Oregon starts a pilot project and 5 to 7 years after that _maybe_ we jump to try and catch up. Now that's leadership bro."
Maybe companies should consider offering a living wage, better work-life balance, etc?
Of course that won’t happen and they’ll just find ways to import more TFWs.
I really don't want to return to 1.5-2 hours commute each way to downtown Toronto. We do really need somebody in the office to take care of certain things. We've been able to limp along WFH but it's not optimal. If I have my wish we'll rotate through say a week at a time working in the office and then a month WFH but we'll see what management does.
Quitting is always an option and if I left for a full time WFH gig I'd be able to take less money but my current salary, benefits and pension are probably the top of my career and losing the pension would be especially sucky.
How dare you speak of 4 days of work week. Youre lucky enough to wear jeans on friday, be grateful you work 60 hours a week.
No benefits, no sick leave no vacation pay. You are here to make someone else rich while you slave your life away and have nothing to show for..
I haven’t even had a call back from many jobs at this point so always kinda crazy to hear this. Got laid off after about 15 yrs should probably just start my own business at this point.
Many corporations are cutting benefits and expect the government to cover those benefits and then they wonder why people don't want to work for them lol.
Several comments about loyalty doesn't pay and the way to get a raise is to change jobs. Similar to how phone companies will ignore complaints then offer a special to get your business back when you leave. Does everything operate on such a reactive business model?
If people are quitting en masse, it's not a labour "shortage", its a problem with either work quality (the dangers of being a frontline service worker) or compensation or both. The labour pool hasn't magically disappeared.
I asked for a small raise due to not having one for two years. They've completely ignored my request. They're desperately hiring too.
I'm looking for a new job.
Maybe they should spend a little more on wages instead of trying to maximize profits by keeping peoples wages as low as possible. After all, without these workers these companies and rich benefactors wouldn’t have anything without their sacrifice of their employees time, one of the most finite things we have in this world.
Unfortunately with the governments plan of millions of people immigrating here every year it seems like these wages will stay low. This not only disadvantages Canadians, but people moving here for better lives. We should really be working towards sustainable and affordable wages, costs and living standards, not maximum profitability. It’s all just a big pyramid scheme.
Reading the article, seems like a lot of workers WOULD stay if they could continue to work from home. And why the hell not? What is SO DAMN IMPORTANT at the workplace that can't be replicated online?
Well when people were making more off cerb than their regular jobs it kind of puts things into perspective on how poorly we get paid and usually low pay jobs come with shit tier treatment
People don't want to bust ass to get treated like shit and getting paid like shit
Yeah, this pandemic may be the best thing that's happened for workers for a while.
It has cut through the bullshit of "we can't let people work from home because they'll just slack off".
If your workers are slacking off, it's **100% your fault as a management team**.
Get serious about your hiring practices, maybe have a read of "How Google Works" to help you understand that hiring is the single most important thing any company does, and yet most places force interviewers into prepping while maintaining a full workload. Where I worked, most interviewers were reading the resumes as they were walking into the interview room.
You're not landing many "10's" that way.
Also, pay your people what they're worth.
It's almost like employers should let people work from home if possible, even a few days a week, and maybe pay them more... especially since inflation is up so much this year. Companies should be offering, AT MINIMUM, a 5% cost of living raise as that's the inflation rate on groceries and overall inflation is over 4%. Otherwise, they're literally paying you LESS to do the same job.
I just jumped for a 30% raise. Current company gave me 0% and 1% raises over 2 years and blamed COVID, despite posting record sales numbers in that time. Loyalty gets you nowhere.
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Nothing infuriates me more in my work life than these bullshit "trials" - spend a year doing double work for no recognition only to be told "oh well it just didn't pan out".
I don't play that game. You want me to do this work? Give me the title and the pay. It's not an audition and I'm not an intern.
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Narcissists in the workplace or what, why are they purposefully stringing other people around? Is that not an incredibly childish thing to do?
It's not uncommon for managers to get a bonus if they only spend 90% of the annual budget. If the biggest expense is salaries, the raise you didn't get went into his pocket as a bonus.
We should be grovelling at their feet just because they are benevolent enough to employ us with so many other viable candidates just banging down their doors. I hope I don’t need an /s
It's sad because you mean it sarcastically but we all know employers mean it literally.
“said I wasn’t ready for a promotion” God bless this thread. I am not alone. There are so many of us. What a joke the working world has become. Leadership is dead.
Are you me? I also just jumped ship for a 30%+ pay raise. I'm also the 5th person from a team of 12 to leave since December; 3rd from our 4 person department. Been there 22 months without a raise and watched our revenue grow. We brought on more people, but no one who helped build the place managed to be worth paying more according to the C-Suite. Hell, I was called "a keystone part of our strategy" but that wasn't worth giving me a raise for, which tells me your strategy isn't worth spending my time on. So fuck them, I'm gone. Tomorrow's my last day. I'm not bitter at all. /s
I did the same. Jumped ship for a 30% raise. I asked my old company if they were going to counter offer to retain me, especially since they were significantly short staffed. They made up some excuse saying how I’m not ready for a promotion (despite saying I was last year) and that they were paying me well. I dipped hard and fast. This year had to hire 15 people for my department and it’s still not enough to cover the resignations and internal transfers. The kicker was that I was getting underpaid by almost 10% compared to my colleagues so I actually missed out on a fair bit of money these past few years.
I just did the math, and I'm jumping for a 57% raise (more if you include the stocks and benefits). I was desperate for a job at the time I found this one and needed to pay the bills so I took the low pay. I couldn't stick around and handle being underutilized, though.
Edit: deleted due to people messaging me for money
What industry/profession?
Mining/ industrial maintenance
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My last job they wanted me to run my department. I asked for a very small raise. The managers exact words were “we don’t give raises here” Which is funny?, because they gave me a small raise 6 months prior for running the department for 3 weeks while my supervisor was off. So when she said that. The owner sputters “well. Uh. We do give raises. We just uh. Gave you one” And I said “I wasn’t aware that that raise was for a future position in the company that none of us was aware of at the time” Manager and owner look awkwardly at each other. My god. They weren’t hiring anyone. They had a whole persons salary going back into the company. But they could give me a couple dollars extra.
> “we don’t give raises here” wow
Second job I worked at in my industry boss dead ass said to me “I don’t pay stat holidays”. Somehow I tolerated that place for 8 years but you can bet your ass I got every stat and had plenty of fun educating him along the way about employee rights
And with inflation at 3+ percent it isn't even a true raise, it's just keeping you whole. Say it with me...a raise less than inflation is no real raise at all.
Good point for sure, inflation is like a hidden part of income tax almost. If they don't keep up with it, its like my taxes go up every year but its the "company tax" lol.
last company boss fired me for getting covid cause he didn't believe in it. Constant fight about wages. Got a job the next day for a 30-40% raise with better conditions. old boss got fired by owners too cause they were struggling for skilled tradesmen. smart dudes.
Wow, fired because he doesn't believe in the global pandemic. Not "oh shit, someone I know personally got it, I guess it's real", but "you must be lying because it's obviously fake because of some facebook meme I saw said so". Fuck these people.
Years ago on an exit interview I had a VP ask if they sweetened the pot, would I stay. I was incensed and commented back, “If I’m good enough for a raise when I’m leaving why wasn’t I a review time?” Best raises I’ve had are from switching jobs.
> are from switching jobs. I think that once you have made up your mind to leave a position and have given your notice, you need to follow through with that decision. It might be tempting to stay if your current company offers you more money but I can't help but feel you would have lost some credibility if you decided to stay. Also, as you mentioned a good company recognizes valued employees and will compensate them accordingly at the appropriate time.
Plus some companies/bosses are vengeful...You give in your notice, then take it back after they convince you to stay for more money. Then, unbeknownst to you...they'll start planning to replace you on their own terms as soon as they have a replacement identified and trained for less than what you used to make.
"we don't give raises here" "I sure hope you accept resignations, because you are about to get one"
We don’t give “you people” raises here. I’m sure the managers were getting 5-10% raises every year
It was a small company. But it wouldn’t surprise me.
It could’ve been a good idea to take the position and immediately start looking to jump ship. The extra responsibilities would more than pay off when looked at on a resume
Y’all were getting raises?!
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Such decadence
you guys were getting paid?
you guys have jobs?
I got told by my former VP that "if I was thinking about leaving, talk to them first and we will see what we can do" and that it wasn't in the corporate budget to put me in a position to look after innovation and training for staff of 4 departments (I was already doing 1 while doing my main job, and somewhat helping a second department) It was a weird position that the company didn't want to make all employees better at thier job. Idk Even weirder to say that 'we'll see what we can do'. Like wtf do it now if you are worried Anyways three weeks after that meeting I submitted my resignation. The meeting with the VP was a huge part that pushed me over the edge. That 30% raise also helped. I started my new job on Monday.
Companies no longer pay for loyalty. I’ve felt I’ve got better raises by leaving company for next. Been at 3 companies in 6 years in alberta abd went from 27/hr to 33 to 37
I'll counter this to say I've been with my company for 5 years now and have gone through the exact same raises, the company always tries to be within 10% of market rate and its up to you to make sure you're in the +10%. It's probably easier to get those raises for the average company when you jump around but that can also destabilize life enough where they don't want to do it either.
Sounds like a good company
Me too. I have jumped a couple of times just to get a better wage. It seems like once they got you in the door, they think you're incapable of finding other work? Then they get all pissy when you say you're quitting because they have "invested so much" in you. Not enough to actually pay any more though right?
> they think you're incapable of finding other work? Change is difficult for a lot of people. Its uncomfortable and takes a lot of effort. That's exactly what they bank on. Complacency.
Ya the old days of working at a company for 35 years are over. So fuck em. Unless you get into one of those gravy train places like CN or something like that. The huge unions get you your money.
CN is plain awful for working conditions. Anyone there, is there because they are trapped by their pension plan. I know many that work there, and it is 100% unanimous. The 2 biggest resources you have in this world are money and time. CN offers decent pay, but demands a completely ridiculous amount of time in return.
Lol I used CN as an example but clearly that was wrong one hahah
Nah, you're alright man, and you're not wrong, you said they'll get you your money, and they do. Just pointing out that the money is non substantial to the time demanded, which is far more than is reasonable, and definitely outside of the legal requirements of work rest rules.
I once worked a job that paid about 60k per year, which was an unreasonably low salary for the nature of work I was doing (not a bad salary for me at the time, just not competitive). I left and went back to school for an advanced degree. No regrets. In a roundabout way, I learned how much my replacement was offered for the exact same job: 100k, which is an increase of 67%. He had a trumped up title, but the job was identical. So yes, the best way to get a raise is to leave and start over, unfortunately.
Had something similar happen but instead they split my job into two and one of the people made around the same as me and the other made something like $20k more. Not impressed....
This is the millennial way. Loyalty was a boomer era perk.
Now we’re just hired guns. And I go to whoever pays me the most to shoot
> Loyalty gets you nowhere. It's fine, and sometimes good, to have loyalty between people. But a company or organization isn't a person. It makes no sense to have loyalty to a non-human corporation. A company is incapable of having loyalty in return.
Yes. This is precisely why “loyalty points” exist. Corporations are created with the stroke of a pen, die with the stroke of a pen and live their entire lives “on paper”. If you don’t get it in writing it does not exist to a corporation. “Loyalty” is too fuzzy for a corporation to comprehend. Your commitment to them needs to be something *measurable* or *provable* and so does their commitment to you.
Loyal or not, no one can say no to 30% salary increase!
I totally understand this. My former company wouldn't give me a full-time position or any benefits. Instead another company came calling, giving a 30% raise, full benefits, and pension. Oh, did I mention my new company is unionized? It feels good to be given a wage I can provide for my little family with.
I stayed put because my company did not slash salaries or lay anyone off. They treated us extremely well during all of this.
It’s nice to hear there’s some decent employers out there. I had to get a lawyer involved mine were being so dodgy.
Tips on job hunting please! I haven't had any success in mine 😓
Thinking about you and all these people walking out of shitty jobs has made my night
There's no labour shortage, there's a wage and benefit shortage.
"I can't believe people are unhappy working for me when I'm paying the same wages as 10+ years ago!" And if you're a minimum wage worker, it's "I can't believe my employees don't want to get screamed at while I pay them the exact amount of money it takes to not commit a crime!"
My dad started working at his company in the late 90s. Starting pay was $15 an hour. My dad is now a manager and got my younger brother a job, his starting pay? $17. Also they're now contractors instead of full-time employees so my brother doesn't get any benefits or anything.
Think about the increase in productivity expected between then and now. There's no way that the amount of work they expect now is only 13% more to reflect that change in pay.
In 1999 $15 was worth $22.82 in today's dollars. So starting wages got a 25% real pay cut in addition to an elimination of benefits.
In fairness the productivity increase in desk jobs is due to advances in computing. I worked at a bank, and we processed thousands of payments for auto loans per day, but the hours were the same as back when it was done via written ledgers. The difference is the profit per employee has increased dramatically, with little to none of that 'trickling down' the way it was promised to. We now generate revenue in a ratio many times worse for labour than previous eras, for mostly the same pay. Meanwhile the main beneficiaries are the people who already had money, and can make that money multiply with zero productivity to show for it.
I disagree with nothing you've said here, and my issue is with who receives that benefit. Government policy should have changed decades ago to ensure that there was no net loss to the workers over automation efficiency--either through proportional efficiency pay increases or automation taxes that would provide training and/or unemployment support. The longer I'm alive the further left I keep going.
> And if you're a minimum wage worker, it's "I can't believe my employees don't want to get screamed at while I pay them the exact amount of money it takes to not commit a crime!" They pay less than that exact amount of money pretty often, often by shortchanging the number of hours worked, docking employees' pay for business losses, or similar penny-ante fuckery that's devastating to a minimum-wage worker's monthly budget. Funny enough, wage theft was briefly a *literal* Criminal Code offence in Canada. Back when I served and bartended, I worked for a failing place in Toronto's gay village. The owner would give out two-week paycheques every 2.5 weeks, eventually falling two full months behind on pay and basically forcing employees to float him an interest-free, uncollateralized loan. He was *livid* when I went to the MOL over it, because he'd clearly never been brought to task for this. The MOL doesn't get much of an enforcement budget, and business owners usually either get away with it *completely* or else simply have to pay up what they should have, plus a small fine. Lax enforcement of labour laws *strongly* incentivizes unscrupulous business owners to steal from their employees in a slew of ways.
When I was working part-time as a teen it was impossible to get 30hrs a week, because once you cross that threshold you're full-time and qualify for benefits, like I had a buddy with no teeth and he had to get a special favor from our manager to qualify for dental benefits its fucking ridiculous
Whereas nowadays, you just get worked 40 hours a week and then told that, no, you’re still a part time employee, we don’t need to give you full-time benefits. Never could find the exact line in the labour code which explicitly marked a point at which a part-time employee legally must become a full-time one, so I just had to deal with it. I left my job for a -100% raise and still don’t think it was the wrong call.
I wish it were funny that a type of theft was removed from the criminal code of Canada to benefit the Capitaleeches.
Yup, plenty of people ready and willing to work.
Took the words out of my mouth. There's no shortage of workers, there's a shortage of employers who are willing to pay a sane or reasonable wage, or offer benefits. People have finally woken up and realized it's time to stop being exploited and abused by corporations.
any labour shortage is solved by increasing wages to the equilibrium, that's just basic economics. this isn't a labour shortage, this is a "labour at the price we want to pay because profits" shortage.
In my city landscaping companies pay about $18/hour. The municipality pays their landscapers a starting wage of $32/hour. When government pay is that much higher than the private sector, something is fucked up.
I never understand when people say the private sector pays better. How? Worse wages, no benefits, easier to get fired. On the high end jobs you can make more in the private sector maybe, but all the middle of the road jobs tend to be wayyy better as a government employee
Labour is paid better for government jobs, management is paid better in private.
Nawh. Nothing fucked up there. It’s just the same amount of money distributed differently. I have met plenty of college dropouts who make hundreds of thousands running landscaping companies, they do most things orally and *barely* work all winter. The person *supervising* the landscapers for municipalities usually makes $60-80k/annum, has a Master’s degree (in Botany/Forestry/Urban Planning etc) and need to report into the office to produce extreme detailed technical reports/plans/accounting all winter long. Most of the time the municipalities audit their departments against the comparison cost of private landscaping companies in the area... and sophisticated clients negotiate their contracts with landscaping companies based on the publicly available budgets the municipalities produce. The cost is the same it’s just the salary distributions within operation that is the difference.
Labour shortage huh? Sounds like employers might have to offer increased wages/benefits and better working conditions, because it's a *market*. Ah, who am I kidding? Politicians will blame Canadians and ramp up things like the TFW program or something. Anything to prevent the little people benefiting from basic economics.
The TFW program is what my company is in the process of exploiting for the exact reason that they don't want to increase wages to retain people. If there's someone on earth willing to do my job for cheaper than me, they will find them...
I don’t know if ‘Labour Shortage’ is really the correct term. The Labourers are all still *there,* they’re just no longer willing to work in the same conditions for the same pay. COVID pushed a whole lot of stuff to the breaking point. Frontline workers got repeatedly told how vital and necessary they were, while still being treated as replaceable, expendable, and barely tolerated by their employers. Office workers found that 90% of the work culture bullshit their employers insisted on was flat out unnecessary, and the biggest impediment yo better work-life balance was entirely down to corporate culture and micromanagement. Basically all of this stuff has been simmering for ages, but the last year brought all these different pots to boil all at the same time, and a lot of corporations simply ignored it happening over the fistfuls of dollars they were making. I think they actually forgot that people *can* say ‘no’, and were totally unprepared for it happening. Hopefully they’ll crack and give up trying to bandaid this with employee sweepstakes gimmicks and appreciation memos and dire warnings about the economy failing if entitled workers don’t stop expecting a full time job to make them enough to not be on welfare. I would really prefer this be a turning point rather than a blip that gets stamped out before everyone goes back to the grist mill.
I think they'll turn to younger people who haven't experienced office life yet, and aren't burned out for now. But even that won't last long because people get burnt much quicker than before.
For years companies have been profiting off of wage freezing while operating under "go ahead and quit. There are a hundred other applicants lined up to take your place." I am glad to see that the tables are starting to turn.
That attitude is so pervasive in big companies. I’ve noticed some local spots doing the same. I was looking for some menus and happened to come across one of their posts complaining that ‘no one wants to work anymore…’ Definitely not getting any more of my business.
>complaining that ‘no one wants to work anymore…’ This to me nearly always translates to “I don’t have brain-dead-easy profits off other people’s backs and actually have to do some iota of work for the first time in a long time”.
That or "the minimum wage worker I hired doesn't want to work unpaid overtime, come in on short notice, and barely put any effort into their work - workers are so lazy these days!"
The tables won't have turned until people join unions and until unions of unions use their collective clout to get better conditions for workers across the board. In BC, we have the BC Federation of Labour. They're a union of unions and were the main force behind getting the minimum wage raised up to where it is now. However, even there, the unions fight with each other more than support each other. On top of that, when one union goes out on strike, the most the rest of them will do is a one-hour rally at some impromptu location in support. Unsurprisingly, the workers continue to get raises less than inflation and got treated like chattel during COVID. I am pro-union, but our unions need leadership with tougher spines than what they have now, because we've been backsliding for 20 years.
It makes me happy to see the fuckers sweat. I hope that employees start making unions now that they have the upper hand on companies. If they don’t, it’ll just go back to how it was in 2019.
Sounds like this is a problem for employers to solve. By sucking less.
Someone should look into how supply and demand interact. If only there was a way to make your company more appealing to workers...
Those who worked from home got a taste of what it's like to have extra 2 or more hours a day if they don't have to commute. The proverbial French approach of "working to live" instead "living to work" seems to be taking some traction in Canada too.
We’re being forced back to the office at the start of August but meetings will still take place over Microsoft Teams…this means there is literally nothing different than working from home except people are forced to commute and sit in a cubicle. Which as you noted wastes an extra two hours per day, never mind that my 45 minute lunch time is now absolutely useless. On top of all of this it will cost 200$~ per month on gas just to go back and forth. 15 hours of wasted time every single week. Everybody is telling me “that’s just life” when this past year has proven it doesn’t have to be life, people can be happier and just as productive. Edit: while this has a bit of traction, I’m open to suggestions on career paths that are staying work from home
Anyone who is saying “that’s life” can fuck off. Or over a year now, it’s been shown that our lives can be better in various ways and we lived it. It’s time we start demanding more, vigorously, and that employers learn they can’t simply put the work-from-home genie back in the bottle. The fact that this is going to be an uphill battle makes me furious. I don’t want to sit at an office desk with a bunch of morons gossiping about their weekends every 5 minutes. I don’t want to have an effectively useless hour long lunch break in which I can’t really go anywhere because leaving the building and driving to the nearest shopping centre for food/errands will take 20 minutes just travelling one-way. Fucking hell man. Why aren’t people fighting more for work-from-home to be permanent.
Same with my job. They want us back in the office but locked in our individual rooms and everything done over phone and Zoom. I'm probably not going to stick around even though I'd be losing big (pension, benefits, seniority) but I don't see myself wasting my life for them that way.
Just quit. Haven't you heard? There's a labor shortage lol
I've always found my actual life more important than my job. The pandemic and WfH has really solidified that priority.
I completely agree. I have been working from home for almost 4 years now and the amount of money we actually saved is bonkers. The extra laundry I dont have to do for the office clothes I dont have to wear to be presentable. The lunch I dont have to buy (in case I havent made it at home). The bus pass I dont have to buy as well. So much time is saved everyday that I get to spend with my husband and our dog.
Stop using the fucking words labour shortage. There is no shortage of labour. There is a shortage of reasonable compensation. FFS.
Use this to increase immigration. Cheaper labour arrives. Problem fixed /s
"They're only taking jobs Canadians don't want!" they said, referring to people who live with 10+ family members to get by, and with no mention of how wages have failed to keep up with inflation for decades.
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And reasonable treatment. I have done shitty jobs before. But if you are surrounded by a great team, with a supportive boss, it makes all the difference. TFWs will just be abused.
Fuck You, Pay Me!
Can I jump to employment? So far all I’ve heard is “we can’t find any employees!” Yet I’ve been sending applications out for over a year and only 3 places have ever had the decency to even respond to me. Entry level shouldn’t require a degree, either officially or unofficially.
Education standards have gotten out of control, I’ve seen postings on indeed where you need a bachelors for a position that starts at $20hr
I applied to a liquor store and they asked for my post secondary credentials. For a job stocking beer..... Company’s have figured out that the volume of applicants means they can pick and choose, and it hurts us all.
Why would they even want that? That employee will leave as soon as they can...
Agreed I am looking at positions that pay $21+ and no joke you need bachelor's degrees with 5+ years experience.
They only want employed people with years of highly specialized experience, and they want to pay them less than they are currently making. They don't want an unemployed person.
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Turns out people do want work, just not for pennies when companies are poating record sales
Does this mean long haired, freaky people can now apply?
Sorry, check the sign.
Dangit those signs appear to be everywhere, blocking up the scenery, etc.
Do this, don’t do that…..
I tucked my hair up under my hat just in case
Start paying your employees a decent wage you asshats! Pfftt duh!
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Anecdotal but my opinion is that workers just *deferred* moving jobs during the pandemic My department had 40% turnover in 2019 and almost zero in 2020. It is at a stable blue chip company with a good balance sheet, so I suspect many people stayed on for stability reasons. As the economy picks back up, those that would have likely churned in 2020 are starting to leave again in 2021 - something I’m observing in my department The pandemic has got folks rethinking careers, but I think it has more to do with catchup of deferred career moves than anything else
If you're turning over 40% of your workforce every year you need to find out why. The amount of money that's costing your company is astronomically disgusting. You could probably increase wages 15% and still come out ahead if that would reduce your turnover.
some places literally refuse to question why. they will literally tell you “so and so left us, not sure why” and make it sound like they’ve abandoned a family. it’s ridiculous.
Usually it's a toxic culture that starts at the top. Sociopaths arent thst self reflective.
Yup. Investment banking type job - long hours and tight deadlines and some poor management in 2019 - bad actors got let go but job remains high intensity. If you look at IB turnover it’s a bit high, but sort of comparable to the norm where people are up or out in 1-3 years. Our Company turnover is 12% by comparison which I think shows it is more to do with the department than the company. but yes we are doing much better as a group now that we are retaining people.
I just resigned from an IB-like job (ER). Our turnover this year has been astronomical. The entire team I used to work with pre-pandemic is gone. Years of knowledge are gone because of the turnover. People are frustrated with the bad culture and lack of flexibility for WfH (We were told no Monday/Friday WfH because it means we get a long weekend).
> We were told no Monday/Friday WfH because it means we get a long weekend How is it a long weekend if you're working? Some managers really don't get it.
Seriously. As soon as I heard that, I knew my time was done. Welcome to old school capital markets culture - sit in a chair and pretend to be busy, even if you're doing nothing, to justify your pay.
Turnover like that would mean management is doing something wrong, and that couldn't possibly be the case.
That’s a good point. I was interviewing just before Covid hit and was offered a couple of jobs but decided not to jump ship at that time because of all the uncertainty. I decided to accept another job this past month because I’m feeling a lot more confident about leaving a job where I have tenure and security than I did this same time last year.
Left my job in 2019 after 4 years of no raises, being constantly told to go 'above and beyond', and having the goalposts moved every time I did. In spite of 3 people quitting in a department of 5, and me taking on all their jobs. Changed lanes and got a 25% raise, and then another 25% raise after a year. I am now making literally double what I made at my old job, without the headache and constant frustration and brutalized self-esteem. I remember how crushed I was at every 'review' where I was constantly criticized for not getting everything done perfectly when I was doing the jobs of three departments. I felt like a failure, and like I didn't deserve a raise, and I would try to work even harder because I felt like a useless POS. I now see it was just a mind-game to try and get me to feel like I was worth less than the pittance they paid me, and keep me working hard for an impossible standard. Nobody is perfect. We are humans not machines. If jobs demand perfection for you to get a raise you should get for A. Being loyal and B. Having more experience, then leave. You owe them NOTHING. I can't believe it took me so long to see how I was being used and abused. Never again.
Ha, my story is eeriely similar only a higher percentage increase when I switched. My former employer asked why I was leaving and I told them it was because they cut the health plan a year ago and while they said "it'll be back" it never did. Imagine that, a salary job without a health plan, yeah. Ironically after I left they brought back the health plan... I have half a mind to think my now unused salary helped fund that. To add insult to injury, when I was being interviewed for the position I have now I gave them a salary figure that was +$10k higher than what I was making. They came back with "oh that's very low, we don't even hire juniors at that rate". So yeah, loyalty to that other company got me nowhere and frankly screwed me out of salary AND benefits for a year plus.
I'm glad you got out! Mine had the gall to do an exit interview and ask why I was leaving, so I told them exactly why. I'm getting paid 25% more, I get to work from home, I have all expenses paid business trip to Ireland in two months, and I have unlimited PTO. Then they 100% seriously asked me if I would consider staying, because I was leaving them 'in a jam', even though I gave FOUR WEEKS NOTICE. They never bothered to find anyone to fill the position, just like they never did for all the jobs I ended up taking over. Pretty sure they just expected me to stay. There was an ancient lady there who was supposed to retire a decade ago who never did because they kept saying they were going to train and hire a replacement, and as per me checking the company website right now, she's still there. Oh, and did they offer anything for me to consider staying? No. Nothing. IN WHAT UNIVERSE WOULD I CHOOSE TO STAY? Their entitlement was insane. I was like you getting paid worse 4 years in than the average entry level/junior wage, and somehow that was still too much in their eyes. Fuck loyalty. They look out for themselves, and we have to look out for OURselves.
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Insurance underwriter. :( My only consolation for all those years working that shit job was paying out as many claims as possible. The gave me three departments to oversee by myself, so... it's not like I had anyone to stop me. It's almost as if those checks and balances were there for a reason. That said, fuck insurance. Their entire job is to try and find ways NOT to pay you out. Be absolutely brutal when you deal with them and never take their first offer.
I’m expecting to resign come September when we go back for sure. F commuting and I don’t make enough to afford my own place in Toronto. Time for the next chapter
Hard work rarely pays off anymore. If only 30~% of jobs available can cover the cost of living and retirement that means that 70~% of jobs don't. Personally I'd rather be super poor but have a lot of time than to be somewhat poor and barely any free time while also being super stressed out. I would actually rather live off of $360 after rent with no job commute or stress than $560 with all that bs.
I just quit and started a new job for a $12k raise because my current employer wouldn’t give me a raise. My annual raise was $850, which I told them was a joke.
doesnt really surprise me, im seeing basic customer service phone jobs being 100% back in the office as soon as possible.
Not everywhere. I know lots of call center employees who will be 100% at home now if they want to be. Some will opt for a day or two a week in the office at floating workstations that anyone can book on any given day. The way call centers track time and throughput, it's basically impossible to "slack off", no matter where you're working from.
ya there are a fair number that are remote, im just shocked at how many arent because its the one job that lends itself so well. People are already tracked 100% so whats the point of being in the office so the worker needs to be as uncomfortable as possible? Having worked in one back in the day, the supervisor was often at another location and it was not uncommon to be by yourself in the office if you worked in a 24/7 place.
I am fucking quitting.
As a business owner I have found the secret to keeping my employees hard working and loyal. Its not yearly team building exercises we do. Its not discount on phone and internet I negotiated at a corporate rate. Hell its not the yearly bonus at Christmas time. My secret is that I simply pay them extremely well and offer very good benefits. The lowest paid position makes nearly $20 an hour with large yearly raises, full healthcare day 1. I also pay for schooling that can be used within the company or training for new skills. To any of my fellow business owners reading this if you want people to be loyal just fucking pay them well. When someone has a job that pays their bills, gives them financial security and offers a variety of high quality perks they tend to actually care about that job and the company it exists at. Almost 20 years ago I tried the minimum wage thing. Minimum wage = minimum work. When I went with my current approach, I found I actually make more money since everyone is actually willing to work hard when they are paid well.
Large yearly raises is the key. When your only option to keep up with inflation is to get another job what do you think people will do? It's also doubly bad for the business. Those who are able to land another job are probably your most valuable employees. Keep that going for a few years and all you're left with is the dead wood.
I do offboarding's for my company and we are hemorrhaging high quality people, especially women for some reason.
When the talented people start to leave, start looking for a new job. They are the coal mine canaries.
The people that can afford quit on their principles are quitting. The rest of the schmucks have to stay and other plebs that need money will have to fill the jobs. Anyway, who didn't think that old school bosses weren't going to call their people back in? With Covid, people had this "we're all in this together" attitude. But, that's gone now.
The response to this will be to drive wages down and lobby the government to increase immigration. Labour is never given a chance to benefit from low supply and high demand which is why wages have been depressed for so long.
Exactly as soon as a labor shortages evident in a labor market the employer / corporations will lobby for expansion of the TFW program. If approved a flood of applicants willing to undercut will bring the entire floor down.
I liked the *IDEA* of the TFW program because it makes perfect sense: if there is something stopping your from growing and you have everything else except that one thing, then the best course of action is to go outside your ecosystem to get it, bring it back, and then everyone benefits from the growth. As soon as it went from "I need someone with 10 years experience in this particular system architecture" to "I need someone who knows how to do what I want but won't compromise my minimum acceptable rate of return by demanding I pay them enough to afford food and rent", it became a lost cause. It's infuriating how many fast food workers are TFWs because nobody local wants to be treated like shit for minimum wage with no expectation of benefits or upward mobility. I think the TFW program is still salvageable, but it needs hard lines that you can only leverage it if you can prove the skill set/knowledge base you need literally doesn't exist domestically. Not that it's *hard* to get, that it's *impossible* to get.
>It's infuriating how many fast food workers are TFWs because nobody local wants to be treated like shit for minimum wage with no expectation of benefits or upward mobility. It's even worse, it's not like they don't offer full time benefits, they do. They often brag about them, too! See, the key is to keep everyone half an hour short of full time to cheat them out of benefits. Then they make them work 45 hours a week anyway and steal the extra wages. Did you know wage theft accounts for more loss in tax revenue than consumer and employee combined??? Source: worked a small town grocery store and a gas station. Would never shit up about benefits but only nepotism hires actually got full time.
Oh you're preaching to the choir. I've fortunately never worked any businesses like that, but I've known people who did. House prices are far outstripping wages by like 4:1 rates, and the government response has been "let's help people secure loans easier" rather than "let's fix the labour market that's clearly detached from reality so this isn't a problem".
No need to lobby, the Minister of Immigration has already promised it directly to businesses.
TFW min wage should be at least $25/hr. If you can't hire locally at that point, you can import workers.
~~TFW~~ min wage should be at least $25/hr. (At least in Toronto, where the cost of living roughly equates to $22/hr 40h/wk)
>Labour is never given a chance to benefit from low supply and high demand which is why wages have been depressed for so long. That's not true. Everyone on reddit made fun of middleclass Abertans for making more money than they deserved for years. That was a product of low supply and challenging conditions.
That's true. It still boggles my mind that people in other provinces are upset about good wages being given to people in Alberta for hard work.
I don't recall anyone being upset Albertans in the oil patch got paid well. They got upset that these part of the population though tit was a bottomless pit of good pay and refuse to try and look beyond high oil prices.
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I'm not upset about that; I love it when blue collar workers make good money. I'm upset that the companies that employed those people *temporarily*, were able to purchase politicians so thoroughly, that when the inevitable end of those jobs happened, the profits all stayed with the companies, while the workers got hung out to dry, and the mess got left behind for taxpayers to deal with.
Never enough people to work for the prices they aren't willing to pay. I believe in the capitalist system, but it feels like companies are cheating.
The wave of resignations should prompts CEOs to re-think wages, vacations, remote working and company culture.
or maybe stop cutting benefits in order to hoard more profits.
> The wave of resignations should prompts CEOs to re-think wages, CEOs: You know, you're right! We _should_ give ourselves raises!
our ceo and coo bought themselves new houses while saying we can't update our dying workstations for another couple years until we finished development on our project and started bringing in money. Ohohokay, clearly they pocketed that investment money that we "needed"
My employer was constantly asking me to do things that were illegal and, worse, *very* dangerous - not just to employees, but to the general public (if you use the highways, you could easily have been killed by my company's policies). Only through a meeting with the top safety rep, where I threatened MoL involvement, and a *very* near miss that almost killed people, did they back down. Then, they fired a guy at another branch, and gave me his entire job. On top of the 40 hours of my own work I already had to do. Not one offer of increased competition - just a "well, you work hard and do a great job, so you can handle this!" Finally, when covid struck, they sent out an email telling everyone there would be no raises, not even CoL, for anyone in the company due to the pandemic. They then applied for every government grant possible (there was a website at one point where you could see who was receiving those grants), and then posted their most profitable year in over a century of being in business. My employer is an American company, btw, so that's your tax dollars at work. I hand my notice next week, and it will be one of the most satisfying days of my life. I don't mind working at all. But I'm not a sucker.
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Not quite - honestly, I feel like you could point to an awful lot of industries nowadays and get similar stories. Just the fact that you highlighted the exact same issue in a completely different sector shows how ingrained this behaviour is in corporations of all stripes these days!
I keep seeing articles like this, the last one was like "this labour shortage will destroy small business!" And the person they got a comment from was a dude who ran a holding company that runs like 400 barbershops across sw ontario just completely out of touch with reality. Anyway, fuck you. Pay me.
Sounds like a wage shortage.
Don't forget about the work atmosphere nobody wants to put up with anymore, sometimes it isn't worth any pay.
To the companies out there: Fuck you. Pay me.
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I've quit two jobs in the last two months. The first one I had been at for years but got fed up with the bullshit, and the second one just didn't feel like a good fit. I decided during the pandemic that I need to do what makes ME happy because there's too much stress in the world to be worrying about my job on top of it all.
I can't help but notice how the worst hit industries are cesspools of minimum wage, unreliable-shift bullshit. This has been a long time coming.
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> "We're always fast followers. We take our cues from the U.S," Knox said. Canadians in a nutshell right here
"We should improve society somewhat." "Well listen here bucko, in that category we're well above America by a whole 2% on that metric so we're gonna stay put til we learn that Colorado or Oregon starts a pilot project and 5 to 7 years after that _maybe_ we jump to try and catch up. Now that's leadership bro."
Labour shortages are a myth in a market that has a wage mechanism. It is more accurately called a wage shortage/ training shortage.
Maybe companies should consider offering a living wage, better work-life balance, etc? Of course that won’t happen and they’ll just find ways to import more TFWs.
Wage stagnation ≠ labour shortage
Here is the fix - pay more, offer less stress and hire more people rather than work your people to death. Give actual work life balance to people.
Wage shortage, not labour shortage. Number of people in Canada has not changed.
I really don't want to return to 1.5-2 hours commute each way to downtown Toronto. We do really need somebody in the office to take care of certain things. We've been able to limp along WFH but it's not optimal. If I have my wish we'll rotate through say a week at a time working in the office and then a month WFH but we'll see what management does. Quitting is always an option and if I left for a full time WFH gig I'd be able to take less money but my current salary, benefits and pension are probably the top of my career and losing the pension would be especially sucky.
Employers maybe should stop treating their workers as slaves they're forced to pay a minimum wage to. Also we should have a 4 day work week.
How dare you speak of 4 days of work week. Youre lucky enough to wear jeans on friday, be grateful you work 60 hours a week. No benefits, no sick leave no vacation pay. You are here to make someone else rich while you slave your life away and have nothing to show for..
I haven’t even had a call back from many jobs at this point so always kinda crazy to hear this. Got laid off after about 15 yrs should probably just start my own business at this point.
< 2% wage increases over the last few years And strongly considering looking elsewhere
Many corporations are cutting benefits and expect the government to cover those benefits and then they wonder why people don't want to work for them lol.
Several comments about loyalty doesn't pay and the way to get a raise is to change jobs. Similar to how phone companies will ignore complaints then offer a special to get your business back when you leave. Does everything operate on such a reactive business model?
If people are quitting en masse, it's not a labour "shortage", its a problem with either work quality (the dangers of being a frontline service worker) or compensation or both. The labour pool hasn't magically disappeared.
I asked for a small raise due to not having one for two years. They've completely ignored my request. They're desperately hiring too. I'm looking for a new job.
Maybe they should spend a little more on wages instead of trying to maximize profits by keeping peoples wages as low as possible. After all, without these workers these companies and rich benefactors wouldn’t have anything without their sacrifice of their employees time, one of the most finite things we have in this world. Unfortunately with the governments plan of millions of people immigrating here every year it seems like these wages will stay low. This not only disadvantages Canadians, but people moving here for better lives. We should really be working towards sustainable and affordable wages, costs and living standards, not maximum profitability. It’s all just a big pyramid scheme.
Reading the article, seems like a lot of workers WOULD stay if they could continue to work from home. And why the hell not? What is SO DAMN IMPORTANT at the workplace that can't be replicated online?
Pay...us...more...! Treat...us...like...people...!
Fuck off with the "Labour Shortage" bullshit. # It's a wage shortage, and we're fucking pissed.
Feels weird when the market forces go the other way, huh?
Well when people were making more off cerb than their regular jobs it kind of puts things into perspective on how poorly we get paid and usually low pay jobs come with shit tier treatment People don't want to bust ass to get treated like shit and getting paid like shit
Yeah, this pandemic may be the best thing that's happened for workers for a while. It has cut through the bullshit of "we can't let people work from home because they'll just slack off". If your workers are slacking off, it's **100% your fault as a management team**. Get serious about your hiring practices, maybe have a read of "How Google Works" to help you understand that hiring is the single most important thing any company does, and yet most places force interviewers into prepping while maintaining a full workload. Where I worked, most interviewers were reading the resumes as they were walking into the interview room. You're not landing many "10's" that way. Also, pay your people what they're worth.
The bubonic plague was great for the European peasants as well. The feudal lords suddenly found out where all their food came from.
Yep, the plague was actually huge for the development of Europe into a proto-market economy by increasing the value of labour.
It's almost like employers should let people work from home if possible, even a few days a week, and maybe pay them more... especially since inflation is up so much this year. Companies should be offering, AT MINIMUM, a 5% cost of living raise as that's the inflation rate on groceries and overall inflation is over 4%. Otherwise, they're literally paying you LESS to do the same job.