I used to have this knee-jerk reaction to complaints of salary and budget, but I had an enlightening conversation with a long-time employee of a large and well-established corporation that changed my tune:
Long-time employees at corporations develop skills that are specialized to that corporation, i.e. a Wal-mart employee after many years is trained to work at Wal-mart and nowhere else. Over those years these employees become vested in the company, earning raises, benefits, etc. that are only available to long-time employees. If such employees jumped back into the job market, they’d have to take a pay cut, lose their benefits, and have to compete against an ever-younger and ever-growing crowd of job applicants, including those fresh out of school with degree in hand.
The older employees have an immediate need to return to their salaries and benefits (i.e. caring for family, paying off mortgage, etc.), while the fresh young’uns don’t require as much of their new employers. This makes the “get a job some place else” creed quite unbearable. Most corporations will chose the young, independent applicant as they will cost much less (esp. in the short term) to employ, even if they’ve less specalized skills. The “older” applicant from a previous corporation will have to be re-trained into their job (old dog, new tricks) while being paid a higher salary (commensurate with experience is the usu. lingo).
When one enters the job market, they’re most likely to get an “entry level” job. Then, as time goes on, they move up in position and salary, until they realize they’re in such a muck: they’re being paid much less than people in similar positions at other companies, their bosses are being paid much more than they are, and they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place… so what choice do they have?
Where, then, is this “somewhere else” you recommend one becomes employed? Unless one is lucky enough to have an “in” at a “good” corporation, or a specialized degree or skill w/ comparable experience, there is not much choice for the common American entry-level worker looking for a lifetime career. Even for the “specialized” worker, the job pool is becoming further diluted with workers imported from overseas/borders and jobs being pushed off the continent.
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