pay cuts (1 Viewer)

[Pantone247]

who's taken one?

I have, the official line is that it's temporary, but it's hard to see what will have to change to make things better in 5 or 6 months.

curious to know how many people are taking them

what will be the end result, poverty or a general lowering of cost of living? Has anyone taken a pay cut and bargained for time off or some sort of benifit back? IMHO if this is a long term measure it would seem fair enough to get something back for the loss of earnings

 

[ann post]

i haven't yet, but know i would if it came up. i already technically have by doing extra hours per week. i was ranting about this on a thread that had nothing to do with it last week, but basically until our wages come back into line with the rest of earth, were not going to be about job creation, or stability. taking a pay cut is the new cool.

dunno how accurate this is:

http://www55.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ireland+world+gdp

 

[flashback]

as soon as it became clear how fucked things were, and that I was having a baby, I quit my job.

Ahhh. Responsibility.


But I mean, to answer your question, as I have been hearing in Ireland (and here) there already have been adjustments. Our rents are going down, stuff in shops seems to be cheaper. Food seems to be the same price though.


I doubt that the pay cuts really are short term. The furloughs maybe.

Here, t-g, back into line with the rest of earth, you think Irish wages are high? Or low? Because Irish wages seem fucking abysmally low to me. And have done for a very long time.

You think all those multinationals were in Ireland for the scenery? Cheap highly educated labour, low taxes.

 

[ann post]

Here, t-g, back into line with the rest of earth, you think Irish wages are high? Or low? Because Irish wages seem fucking abysmally low to me. And have done for a very long time.

their much too high for a little island on the coast of europe. the industry is moving to eastern europe for the lower cost labour, all the multinationals are pulling out because of losing thier tax breaks here, and it swinging in the way that its now becoming again easier to pay/employ americans or indeed indians then irish. to the best of my knowledge, that is happening on earth. what is happening on your earth?

 

[pissypants]

Most people I know have taken a pay cut of some kind, across many industries. Management will say it's temporary to soften the blow, because, ideally of course, they'd want it to be temporary. I took a pay cut in November, and have been on a 2 day week since January....

 

[Moods For Mallards]

Pay freeze in here.

I've effectively had a pay cut since 2007 though, as they stopped paying the Christmas bonus, which was 10% of your salary and had always been paid, so you automatically factored it in.

 

[Pantone247]

Here, t-g, back into line with the rest of earth, you think Irish wages are high? Or low? Because Irish wages seem fucking abysmally low to me. And have done for a very long time.

my impression was there's a huge gulf in wages here

generally people over (say for example) 40k are way over 40k, people below it are way below it... I think the tax banding sort of encourages this and also that management made hay while the sun shone and the little people just managed to make it comfortable for a while

IMHO the danger is management make cuts, say 8%, that mean they'll have to not change cars this year, or drop the second holiday, which they feel is a sacrafice they can handle... but down the line 8% means the post boy or receptionist can't make rent start hitting up the overdrafts and credit cards and start sinking into debt

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

as soon as it became clear how fucked things were, and that I was having a baby, I quit my job.

Ahhh. Responsibility.

You're a bird?

That explains a lot.

 

[Red_Dog]

I bet all you pricks are loaded

 

[flashback]

You're a bird?

That explains a lot.

I was wondering why you were blanking all my flirty PMs.

 

[flashback]

I bet all you pricks are loaded

I'm fucking loaded.




Actually, not including the mortgage, obviously, I am almost broke.

Which, for the US, is really good going.

 

[flashback]

my impression was there's a huge gulf in wages here

generally people over (say for example) 40k are way over 40k, people below it are way below it... I think the tax banding sort of encourages this and also that management made hay while the sun shone and the little people just managed to make it comfortable for a while

IMHO the danger is management make cuts, say 8%, that mean they'll have to not change cars this year, or drop the second holiday, which they feel is a sacrafice they can handle... but down the line 8% means the post boy or receptionist can't make rent start hitting up the overdrafts and credit cards and start sinking into debt

interesting.
I hadn't thought about it that way. (re the big jump between the 40k above / below.) Is that actually true I wonder?


Are these very low paid workers being asked to take pay cuts too? I thought it was more the other class of dudes, the lads with the Mercs.

I mean, on one level, the market can only handle what it can handle. If the post boy can't pay his rent, and there are masses of people in the same boat, then rents must decrease.

Landlords will take something over nothing.

My mates in back home have pretty much all negotiated rent decreases over the last year.

 

[aoboa]

No pay cut yet but are being asked to work an extra 2.5hrs a week for free. Doesn't sound like much but it's three extra weeks work a year and that's before the impact on overtime is taken into account which brings it up to 4.5 weeks extra.

 

[Jill Hives]

My paycheck nearly made me cry this month. The pension, income and health levies wiped out all entertainment plus some. Gig or food? I didn't like eating anyway.

 

[Moods For Mallards]

I didn't like eating anyway.

Hey can I pick up my cheesy corn snacks sometime?

 

[Jill Hives]

Hey can I pick up my cheesy corn snacks sometime?

They went to a good cause. Consider me part of the 'concern' charity. I also provide good conversation for the mere sum of a pint and a toasty.

 

[tommytrousers]

15% pay cut but an unofficial 9 day forthnight amongst ourselves which UK HQ won't be told about and no more unofficial overtime/doing admin outside of contracted hours etc. Decent enough trade off for the mo'..

 

[egg_]

their much too high for a little island on the coast of europe

Bah. What has the size of the island, or which coast it's off, got to do with anything? Our wages are high compared to Poland, sure, but are they high compared to other countries with similar costs of living (the rest of the EU before Poland etc joined, for example)? It's not actually that easy to do a comparison - teachers, say, get paid less than the EU-15 average when they start out, but more after 15 years of service

the industry is moving to eastern europe for the lower cost labour

Some of "the industry" is, and it'll keep chasing the cheap labour until everyone in the world is rich. That's why the govt is emphasising high-skill, knowledge-economy type jobs that can't be exported so easily - because basically you need a fairly wealthy society to train people enough to be able to do those jobs

I know that there's a lot of talk about techie jobs like software going to Russia and India, but in my experience it's not really affecting Irish programmers all that much (yet). My experience with outsourcing software development abroad any place I've worked has been, with two exceptions in 5 years, terrible. Maybe that's got something to do with it

all the multinationals are pulling out because of losing thier tax breaks here, and it swinging in the way that its now becoming again easier to pay/employ americans or indeed indians then irish

They're not actually losing their tax breaks, though. Not yet anyway

 

[snakybus]

I'm not on a three day week but I am doing three days work per week so I feel a certain solidarity with those who are.

 

[billygannon]

Some of "the industry" is, and it'll keep chasing the cheap labour until everyone in the world is rich. That's why the govt is emphasising high-skill, knowledge-economy type jobs that can't be exported so easily - because basically you need a fairly wealthy society to train people enough to be able to do those jobs

I know that there's a lot of talk about techie jobs like software going to Russia and India, but in my experience it's not really affecting Irish programmers all that much (yet). My experience with outsourcing software development abroad any place I've worked has been, with two exceptions in 5 years, terrible. Maybe that's got something to do with it

In the place I worked previously everything was outsourced to India. They were mad for it. And yes, some of what they did was just terrible.
We had two call centres... one in the North of England... one in Mumbai.
In the North of England, we had to pay the staff cash incentives simply to come in.
In Mumbai, one day the ground floor of the call centre was completely flooded. Staff actually swam to work.
The Mumbai centre was consistently better than the one in the North of England. We were just keeping the English one going because it was good to have one we could easily get to.

There is a problem with focusing on teritary industries and building your economy around this.
A country doesn't actually become sustainably rich through a economy based on high-skilled, knowledge-driven industries.

A country is rich either because it is strong politically and militarily or it is rich in resources (be in people or natural resources).

Ireland, Iceland... these countries are ultimately disposable. There isn't anything fundamentally important to the rest of the world about these countries.
Our education system could be absolutely wonderful, but it is no better than the education that, say, the top 10% wealthiest Indian children get.

Ireland was incredibly lucky during the 1990's. A huge proportion of the population were under 25. They were educated and spoke English. They were willing to work for less. There was the Peace Process. EU money. The international attention garnered through U2, Riverdance, Mary Robinson, the World Cups in 1990 and 1994 and Irish films winning awards. Being pro-Europe, yet also being uniquely tied in to the UK.
Basically it was one high profile thing after another. As Carly Fiorina put it, when a company wanted to invest in Europe, the first question was "why not Ireland?"

However it was always going to be short lived. Countries like India, China, Brazil and Russia have huge populations and lots and lots of natural resources. All they have to do is to have a stable political structure. Educating their population to do the jobs we want to do isn't all that hard.

Ireland's wealth is remarkable, but considering that the reasons why it became wealthy in the first place are now dwindling away, it has to be expected that Ireland will become poorer.

Ireland is surviving on the fact that American, British and German companies simply like us (and we don't charge them much tax).

The cost of living in Ireland needs to come down dramatically. Everything is ridiculously overpriced.

Ireland's big advantage is we speak English as a first language and we're not English or American.