Are you happy with your pay increase?

[Gandalf]

One thing that made me give up on the UK was the uselessness of it all. Every year you would get your pay increase of 1.67% and of course forming a union was prohibited and shareholder profit was the primary motivation of the corporation. There is no incentive to work hard in such an environment. This year is a little like that for me. Still, I'm doing the same work as last year, so prep time is considerably reduced.

[killersheep]

Private sector employees in the US don't get pay increases after menial initial raises. The model has moved towards profit sharing (if affordable) or commission to better protect the companies from weak market strain. Furthermore, work is trending towards a much more temporary, part time situation.

For me personally, I have received 3 raises in the 8 years in my current job.
1st one was 20%, 2nd was 50%, 3rd was 11%

Each raise took weeks of negotiating and spreadsheets showing my productivity (ironic right?), the key thing is raises are not based on tenure, they are based on how much money I make for the owner and how much he would lose if I left. The 50% raise was negotiated by showing him an offer made to me by another company.

[Gandalf]

Yes, job security is far lower in developed nations than it was in the past and in the West the emphasis on cost cutting (wages, lay offs, longer hours/harder work) and maximizing shareholder value is the priority. Then you also factor in the global economy and I think workers as a whole are suffering. It is interesting how executive pay never seems to stagnate.

An increase of 81% over 8 years is very good. In 9 years I have doubled my income and along the way halved my working hours and maximized my time off, so to then go back to increases of a couple of percent like in my UK days is a bit of a downer.

I miss the freedom of my freelancing days, but I couldn't get the time off that I now have. A case of taking the rough with the smooth.

[Master]

No pay increase in 3 years should get one this year and I work in the public sector.