Cutting Hours and Pay: Hourly vs. Salaried II

Two month ago, I started to answer a few readers questions about cutting hours and pay for exempt and non-exempt workers. I promised a second post of the subject: this is it.

Here are the questions I still need to answer:

"[...] can a person be determined exempt for the reason of “Professional” when he/she only works 10 months out of the year, furloughed for 8 weeks to go on unemployment benefits, then return to work?"

"[...Given the downturn in our business] our exempt and non-exempt employees would be willing to trim their hours from 40 hours to 32 hours per week (get paid for 32). Having said that, I wanted to verify if this would violate any FLSA benefits and/or rights for either classification (exempt or non-exempt)."

"I am an exempt employee; can my company strongly request that I volunteer to take 2 days off without pay in order to help meet the annual budget?"

These questions are basically the same; can salaried employees "ready, willing, and able to work" be paid less than their full salary? The simple answer would be no, but nothing is ever simple.

Are you paid your full salary, or is your pay already on a furlough? Find out with a PayScale free salary report.

Pay Packages: Smaller Now than 8 Months Ago?

This question came via the Seattle Tech Startups mailing list:

How do you adjust for the recent changes in comp packages brought about by recession, layoffs, unemployment rates, etc? Or don't you?

It would seem to me that data from 8+ months ago is probably quite different than data from the recent 2-4 months...

The simple answer is that about half the data PayScale now uses were collected since October 1. We also look at any trends in the data over the last year, and target our reports to reflect our best estimate of what a job paid 90 days ago.

If there were a big shift in pay for a job in the last six months, our current reports would show the typical pay as of January first. No other salary survey has or uses data this fresh.

However, this answer is missing the point.

Implicit in the question is that employers reduce costs in a recession by reducing the pay to workers. The real answer is more complex, and is the subject of this post.

Are you being paid what you are worth today? Even in a recession, some jobs are in high demand. Find out with a free PayScale salary report.

Dream Jobs: Fun Opportunities after a Layoff

With thousands of recent lay-offs, and a hiring freeze at many employers, now is a good time to consider concentrating your job search efforts on a "dream job".

Dream jobs require little or no formal training to get started, and are a way to pursue a hobby, enjoy more leisure time, and/or socialize with all types of people. The pay for these jobs is often lower, but you can be vastly rewarded with more fun, less stress, and shorter work weeks.

In this blog, I will look at a variety of dream jobs and what they pay.

Are you curious about the salary of your dream job? Find out using PayScale's Salary Calculator.

Unemployment Up - and Pay Raises too?

The February unemployment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released Friday is bleak: a 8.1% unemployment rate.

David Leonhardt, writing in the New York Times Economix blog, tried to put a positive spin on the news by pointing out that the data imply average wages are rising, and are up about 3.6% over one year earlier.

How can this be? I suspect two things:

• The BLS statistical measurement of average wages is likely accurate
• The obvious conclusion, each worker got a raise averaging 3.6% in February, is very likely wrong

The phenomena is an old one known to compensation professionals: in times of layoffs, the average pay at companies losing workers often goes up, as reported in traditional compensation surveys.

In this post, I will look at why average wages go up with layoffs, and what this really means. Want to know if wages for your job and skills are up or down? Find out with a free PayScale salary report.

Generation Y: What is a lot of Money?

[Editor's note: Katie Bardaro, PayScale research analyst and recent U of Washington economics master's degree recipient, is contributing posts to the Dr. Salary blog. Dr. Salary is categorized as generation "X", mostly because of his attitude towards "Baby Boomers".]

People in my generation (Generation Y) expect to earn high pay after college graduation, but is this realistic? According to an article by CNN.com, those in Generation Y want "better pay, a flexible work schedule and company-provided [technology]." In fact, an overwhelming majority of hiring managers and HR professionals describe these people as exhibiting "a sense of entitlement that older generations don't."

What type of salary can those of us in Generation Y expect and what is considered a lot of money? Here at PayScale, we are obsessed with accurate salary data and can use our database of over 16 million profiles to answer this question.

In this blog I will look at some interesting salary facts according to several different characteristics: school, major, gender, job titles, and location.

Are you a recent college graduate and wondering whether you are earning top dollar? Use the PayScale Salary Survey to find out.