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New data show much faster growth in wages and incomes.
Wages and salary figures have been going up faster than previously estimated, with the year-over-year increase revised from 3.6% to 5.5%. Even after adjusting for inflation, that is 4.1%.
Overall personal income is up, transfer receipts (welfare) are down, and savings is up. Americans are relying less on the government and saving more of what they earn. Personal savings is 8.1%, not the 6.1% that had been estimated. Consumer spending is up despite the increase in savings. The fact that spending isn't accompanied by a household debt increase makes the economic expansion more durable.
The numbers for the first quarter of 2019 look particularly good for reducing income inequality. Corporate profits declined while wages grew at an annualized rate of 10.1%.
(Score: 1) by jon3k on Friday August 02 2019, @12:36PM (3 children)
You should consider a new job. Unemployment is at historic lows and it is a seller's market. I have lots of friends who have taken new jobs that included huge raises, RSU and sign-on bonuses within the last couple of months. Employers are desperate. I know I am. Finding quality employees is nearly impossible. Tech unemployment is at 1.9% [dice.com]. If you can't get a raise in this market, the problem isn't the market.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @03:22PM (1 child)
I have a friend who is currently in the market. At least from what he is saying, it doesn't sound like hiring is at all desperate. He is an experienced programmer, but he needs to practice random puzzles online to get past a first interview.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @09:42PM
To clarify a bit more, he has been working in the industry for ~18 years, for 4 employers, a good number of professional references who work at the companies he is interviewing at and can testify to his skills and character. The vibe in town is that the companies are looking for people.
To get invited for an onsite interview, he has to go through online interviews where they give him an IDE-in-the-browser, and then give him a problem like "program a binary tree and implement an in-order traversal" or something random like that. If he can do it snappily and correctly enough, then he has a chance for an onsite interview.
But they all seem very lukewarm when it comes to extend an offer. He's not in a hurry so he thinks of this as opportunity for practice and the cost of being in the business.
Looking around, I think the platform they made him test on was https://www.hackerrank.com/ [hackerrank.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2019, @08:03PM
there's 'jobs' (placeholders that aren't filled so that h1b can be used) and then there are jobs that only pay what a newly minted college graduate would accept
the place that I work at changed their vacation policy so that new employees get an extra week of vacation to make the work-life-balance better they say - no additional vacation weeks were added for employees who have over 20 years of service
some older friends have tried changing jobs recently and didn't see the mythical IT employment environment that you decribed