Would You Be Willing to take a 5% Pay Cut...

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

Doing some philosophical research here... Regardless of profession, in this economy, would you be willing to take a 5% pay cut to save your job or the jobs of your colleagues? Essentially the scenario is your boss comes to you and asks you to take a 5% cut so he/she can reduce the amount of layoffs that your school/business/organization needs to make.

Would you say yes to save your job?
Would you say yes to save your friend's job?
Would you say yes to save the jobs of people you don't know but are supporting families?

I like forward to your responses...

[hawing]

Frankly, I and some of my colleagues were half expecting furloughs at our workplace (and with the state budget far from determined, hardly feel out of the woods yet).

I'd want to see the details of a furlough or other pay cut, but in general I'd be willing to take a small, hopefully temporary hit to preserve positions. We've seen enough positions disappear this last decade as it is.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I think given the current economic climate, it'd be tough to say no to this question. (Unless you're an exec for AIG). While nobody wants to take a paycut, if it's 5% or lose your job, to me, that's a no brainer.

[hawing]

if it's 5% or lose your job, to me, that's a no brainer.

Indeed, though some may answer differently if it's "5 percent or someone else is laid off."

[RyDogg66]

isnt this sort of a prisoner's dilemma type question? I would be happy to take a 5% pay cut to help save jobs, knowing that if we all took a 5% paycut that it WoULD save jobs, however, if I didnt know or thought that not everyone WOULD take the cut and therefore my job and their jobs would still be in jeopardy I might not.

 

Does that make sense?

[whizkid]

Salaries at my company are frozen for an indeterminate period as are level promotions as in I to II to III to senior etc. It would seem in your scenario you may not know if you're saving your, a friends or a strangers job. In any case, my answers are yes, yes, yes.

[pitchleague]

Our school district is considering this proposal right now for the following school year. I would probably do it to save other jobs for other people. My wife and I are both pretty safe for next year (I'd say 99% safe) so we'd probably do it.

 

It sure would be nice for utility companies and the like to notice the slumping economy and the unemployment/lack of safety in employment and freeze their rates for a while to go with the 5% cut, but that's not going to happen.

[tristarscoop]

I already took a 10% pay cut - we had them company wide. Actually, the big wigs took them a few months before and then we all got them about a month ago. We're a small company and losing anyone makes my job harder, plus, I feel like if the choice is a pay cut or lost jobs, I'm going with the pay cut because that cut could be me.

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

Please avoid political posts. They are not allowed here. This isn't any easy question, but i'm wondering what lengths people will go to protect their jobs or help their co-workers

[TSack27]

After a round of layoffs several months ago, many of us that remained questioned management if they had consider furloughs across the board instead of permanent layoffs. So, instead of a second round of layoffs this month, our rotating 2 weeks furloughs have begun (that's about 5%, but I sense that the reasons of the group varied from saving your own, your friends and your distant co-workers jobs). Plus anniversary & holiday bonuses and summer picnic & Christmas parties have been suspended indefinitely.

[Schlitz001]

I am still currently employed by my company, but I have not worked since mid January because the only jobs that I could fill would have me take a 60% paycut. We have about 80 employees and 20 of them are currently earning pay. In order to take one of these 20 jobs I need to take a significant paycut. Some of my co-workers initially earn less than I do, so their paycut is not as severe if they take these jobs and others are simply desperate for work and they are filling these jobs. The only reason I am sticking with the company is that I know I will again earn my full pay come mid April. I think I would draw the line at about a 15% paycut, but of course this all depends on the individual, their cost of living and their line of work.

[JimH5]

I would certainly say yes to save my own job.

 

And after that, it gets murky. . .

 

Has the scenario been presented such that I think the organization will be better in the long run by accepting the short term cut? I'm not taking a voluntary cut just to save jobs if those jobs don't really add value to the future organization, regardless if my friend is in one, or someone else supporting a family.

[gypcasino]

Would you say yes to save your job?

Would you say yes to save your friend's job?

Would you say yes to save the jobs of people you don't know but are supporting families?

I suppose. In theory I guess it'd be the right thing to do.

I'm probably the wrong person to ask since my employer made a $13 billion profit last year and I'm expecting a raise when we sign a new contract next month.

[TheCrew07]

yes

yes

The third question I'm not sure of... are these people working for my company? If so then yes, if not then no. In theory lowering cost allows my company to remain competitive possibly lowering the cost of the services we provide, which may allow our customers to save some money, thus saving some jobs out in the world. I would have said yes to third under the scenario I propose if my company wasn't doing business with so many of the companies that got bailouts.. my tax dollars have done enough so I'm not willing to take a pay cut for them as well.

[Patrick425]

Yes, I would take a pay cut to save my job. I would also take a cut to save my friends/coworkers jobs if it were purely a financial issue. If there are some employees who are not producing as much and/or are not as capable as others and the company can save money by cutting these people, I'm not sure I would be willing to take a cut to save their jobs. However, I think this question is purely hypothetical because in just about every case this decision is not going to be left up to the employee to make (unless maybe it's a real small company).

[gypcasino]

If there are some employees who are not producing as much and/or are not as capable as others and the company can save money by cutting these people, I'm not sure I would be willing to take a cut to save their jobs.

Same here. I work with plenty of incompetent family supporting people of whom I absolutely would not take a pay cut in order to save their jobs and who probably should have been fired a long time ago.

[Brian the Automator]

It depends on whose job I'm saving. If there's people you work with who make the company less profitable because they're lazy, I don't necessarily feel like I should save their job. Assuming that everyone's giving it their best though?... I'd probably take a 5% paycut.

[FVBrewerFan]

Yes, I would take the 5% cut to save my job.

 

No, I wouldn't take a pay cut to save soemone else's job- even a friend. That's just being honest. I work to support my wife and children, not my friends and/or co-workers.

[fondybrewfan]

I would probably take a 25% pay cut to save my own job in this economy and I could handle a 5% cut if I had a guarantee that a close friend would lose his job if I didn't agree. I would probably say No to option #3

[brewerjamie15]

My job I'd save.

A friend's job? Probably.

A co-worker I'm not too friendly with? I guess I'd lean with Brian's earlier thought about productivity. If the person is a lazy or worthless individual who puts forth little to no effort? Gonner. If however, the person actually tried to produce I'd have to talk with my wife and then make the decision. I'm leaning to say I'd take the cut but only temporarily not long term.

[Hammer]

I would do anything to have a job right now so "5%" for me?...yep. "5% for a friend"...yep. "5% for someone supporting a family?"...yep. Unless you are currently without a job in this economy you have no clue how small of a chance you have at getting a job if you turned down a 5% pay cut.

[Jimbo]

After a long search, I finally switched jobs back in November which came with it a significant raise to put me back in my peer group. Not so sure if I would willingly give it up so quick.

[Outlander]

I would say yes to the first two but I think the third one is tough and could even be interpreted as a 5% tax increase if "people" means millions of people you don't know that are trying to support families.

[LouisEly]

Has the scenario been presented such that I think the organization will be better in the long run by accepting the short term cut? I'm not taking a voluntary cut just to save jobs if those jobs don't really add value to the future organization, regardless if my friend is in one, or someone else supporting a family.

 

This exact scenario is the one that has plagued many unions, particularly the auto workers unions. It wasn't that long ago in the early 80's when AMC came to the union in Kenosha and said they needed to build a new plant but in order to absorb the cost they would need wage concessions. The union said no, so AMC pulled out of Kenosha and the whole area took a huge economic hit. Now AMC was going under anyway, but had they taken the pay cut and built the plant there would have been a new plant that Chrysler would have taken over and with all of the hugely successful cars Chrysler came out with in the mid-80s to today it could have made for an economic boom in that area. Instead a lot of people lost their jobs, which caused other people to lose their jobs/businesses.

 

Hammer makes a great point. We just went through an expansion and realignment and have 47 positions open nationwide (in a sales force of ~320). I was in Chicago this week to help run interviews and we had the best panel of candidates I've ever seen, and had several people that I would hire in a heartbeat actually not be our first choice because there were better candidates. We screened 5000 resumes to come down to 150 to interview for 47 positions. So my answer is "yes", I would take a 5% pay cut under any scenario. Because there's no guarantee that declining it means eliminating just someone else's job.

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

With the stock market charging ahead today (and the past 2-3 weeks), maybe we're finally past the "bottoming out". Thanks for all the replys in this thread. I found this very interesting