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Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

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Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#91

Post by mason55 »

sidfthec wrote: post #79
mc32 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not better/preferable to freeze salaries than to cut more staff? From a morale PoV, from a human PoV, except maybe not from an individual PoV, overall.

> Is it not better/preferable to freeze salaries than to cut more staff? Hint: Neither is needed for most of these big tech companies.

Large tech companies don't exist to serve as employment programs for software engineers.

If they believe it will increase profits without longterm harm then layoffs/salary freezes are the right thing for them to do as a company even if they are wildly successful.

Layoffs are frequently done when a company is struggling, so people seem to think it's incongruous for a company to do layoffs if they are doing well.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#93

Post by UK-Al05 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #82
UK-Al05 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is a cut. Your spending power is less. It's a real terms cut. There's a good chance they've increased their product prices by inflation as well. I mean they don't have to raise salaries, but if someone is offering me a higher rate I'm going to go. You have no responsibility to your company. Now if the entire market is telling me to take a cut, either it's collusion or software developers are simply worth l…

Everyone is worth less when the pandemic and war disrupted so many things.

Some are worth more, some are worth less.

Relative worth is constantly changing.

There are professions that are paid more than ever

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#94

Post by gumby »

Hmm, still doing stock buybacks and paying dividends -- so exec comp remains buoyant.

Back in the early 1980s it was hard to get software companies financed: "Why invest in a company whose primary input walks out the door each evening" (i.e. has no capital assets). Obviously that was eventually sorted out, but the underlying concern was not totally bogus.

If you like a company like Microsoft you can tolerate no buybacks and even a dividend cut if it means the company continues to invest in its people.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#95

Post by nickpp »

schainks wrote: post #84
mc32 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not better/preferable to freeze salaries than to cut more staff? From a morale PoV, from a human PoV, except maybe not from an individual PoV, overall.

Do not have mercy for a faceless corporation continually posting profits that grow quarter over quarter. They are rolling in money and could cut executive comp or something else, but choose not to.

Executives lost to competition due to cut comp are much harder to replace than regular workers. Sucks, but it’s the reality.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#96

Post by bagacrap »

remote_phone wrote: post #90
galoisscobi wrote: post #15

Wondering how long it’ll take for other tech companies to copy this move and pretend that they independently arrived at these conclusions after their meticulous macroeconomic analysis.

Google raises for most employees was between 0% and 1%

This is inaccurate.

However if your sample is only people who are on Blind complaining, I can see how your data might be skewed in that direction.

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#98

Post by pydry »

csa wrote: post #42
pydry wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much illegal back channel coordination there is going on between the big tech companies on this.

It doesn’t take illegal back channel coordination to play follow the leader. All it takes is one major company to pull the trigger, then the rest will follow. The hiring market during covid was wonky in a way that favored applicants, and a lot of folks who got hired were under-qualified, overpaid, or both. This is just a natural reversion to a more balanced state across the industry.

Coordination is required to make sure that one company decide to "defect" and start offering pay rises to all the best people at Microsoft.

At least, thats what the illegal agreement was about last time this happened (between Apple and Google).

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#99

Post by fzeroracer »

csa wrote: post #42
pydry wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much illegal back channel coordination there is going on between the big tech companies on this.

It doesn’t take illegal back channel coordination to play follow the leader. All it takes is one major company to pull the trigger, then the rest will follow. The hiring market during covid was wonky in a way that favored applicants, and a lot of folks who got hired were under-qualified, overpaid, or both. This is just a natural reversion to a more balanced state across the industry.

How exactly is it a 'natural reversion' when even high performing employees are now effectively taking a massive pay cut due to the salary freeze and inflation?

Re: Microsoft Freezes Salaries for 2023

#100

Post by qbasic_forever »

Yet they're making huge stock buybacks and profits each quarter... something is fishy.

This is going to royally backfire as soon as the first big tech company blinks and starts hiring and poaching frustrated engineers. The exact same thing happened in the aftermath of '08 where companies that cut and held salaries flat were scrambling in '09 to retain and keep engineers--I distinctly remember Microsoft doing an across the board increase in salary to try to stem the bleeding and attrition.

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