Please, Sir, A Bit More?

As Companies Trim Costs, White-Collar Workers See Salary Increases Held Down

The Wall Street Journal 10/26/04
author: Erin White
author: Kris Maher
(Copyright (c) 2004, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

The squeeze is on for white-collar workers.

Despite hopes that an improving economy would bolster wages, salary increases for white-collar workers are stuck at an average 3.4% this year and are expected to total no more than 3.6% next year, according to human-resources consulting firm Hewitt Associates.

The skimpy pay raises for the white-collar crowd follow two prior years of lean increases. After steady 4% and 5% increases during every year but one in the 1990s, raises for white-collar workers fell to 3.6% in 2002 and 3.4% in 2003, Hewitt notes. "We're in a very underwhelming pay-increase period," says Peter LeBlanc, senior vice president at Sibson Consulting, a New York-based human-resources consulting firm.

By contrast, compensation for chief executive officers and their top lieutenants is still generous. CEOs in office at least two years received a 7.2% increase in salary and bonus in 2003 to a median of $2,118,000, according to an analysis of proxy statements for 350 major U.S. corporations prepared for The Wall Street Journal by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, New York.