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--- Thom Randolph wrote:
>
> I couldn't agree less. It has been my experience that the stock market
> shows an inverse relationship to wage rates for technical professionals.
> In fact, falling stock prices tends to make technical professionals
> demand higher base wages because the stock options are worthless. It
> becomes a no-equity, all-cash relationship. Look at the ridiculously low
> wages with huge stock options people were taking in the glory days of
> 1998/9. People are completely unwilling to take that risk now.
That isn't true. Falling stock market prices reduces the value of
companies. Less value leads to "belt tightening." Expenses must be reduced
and profits maximized to help bolster the company's value. (Remember, a
company is judged by the marketplace on stock performance, and not the
products they produce.)
All of this results in a reduction of spending. There is pressure on
companies to get more from less. Hence, they will begin reducing budgets -
and tech writing is usually one of the first areas of a company to get
slashed.
The real issue here is simple supply and demand. The demand for writers is
lower because companies are staffing fewer jobs. The supply is large
because a lot of writers are out of work.
When supply is good and demand low, prices fall. Technical writing work
is, like all other work, a commodity of sorts. It is susceptible to the
same supply and demand forces of all goods and services.
Therefore, companies are simply not willing to fork over big rates when
they can easily get qualified people for less.
> With regard to market dynamics, "what the market will bear" is not the
> only issue. There is also higher opportunity cost for the hiring company
> when they only pay sub-market wages. When a company goes through a
> contract agency and tries to get a sub-standard wage, they often do more
> harm to themselves in lost market than they do by saving wage dollars.
That may be conceptually sound, but it is not an economic certainty. The
fact is, there are more writers on the market looking for work. Hence,
there is a large pool of people to pick from. This makes all those in that
pool have to compete more aggressively. Any time you have a great deal of
options, there is a natural incentive to drive down prices.
Companies will always seek to maximize the cost/benefit equation. They are
going to hire the best person they can for the least amount of money.
There are a lot of very qualified people competing for a very small number
of jobs.
Some people are more desperate than others, and hence will accept lower
paying positions. I have seen this first hand. Applicants that could have
commanded salaries of 80K or more 2 years ago are now begging for 50K
jobs.
> Paying a market-grade wage will make it much easier and therefore faster
> to find qualified help, which leads directly to lower schedule and error
> risk for their project.
"Market wages" are in rapid decline, some people just don't want to accept
that. Just because STC tells you that you deserve $82.00 an hour, doesn't
make it fact. Most of those salary surveys were done last year when the
DOW was at 11,000.
Its a different world now. Adapt or die.
> By only paying sub-market wages, they will almost
> always significantly increase the time to get the worker in the door,
> and limit the talent pool to those willing to accept that lower wage.
That makes absolutely no sense. When there are tons of people looking for
work, people will naturally accept lower wages. I know 20 to 30 writers
who have been out of work for months now. They would gleefully take a
contract at 1/2 their previous rate. And these are skilled, talented
people.
Yeah, it sucks that they have to work for less - but thats the way things
are. The person with the $$$ sets the rules.
> You did get (at least) one thing right on, however. It's not right,
> morally if not legally, to collude with others and prevent an employer
> from having access to available workers. Companies should not be
> artificially prevented from testing the market acceptance of those lower
> wages. They may risk their own product success, but it's their risk to
> take.
You have very contradictory things here Thom. So it is bad for us writers
to collude to fix rates, but its also bad for employers to set their rate
low?
So basically, all rates should be set by what? Guesses? Some STC salary
survey?
You must remember that free markets are dynamic. They go up and down.
Right now the job market is down, which means quite simply, rates must
also go down. The person who is hiring has the right to set their rates.
They will set them based on whatever they are willing to pay. Right now,
most companies can get qualified people for much less than what most
salary surveys say. Therefore, there is no incentive for those companies
to pay more.
The "you get what you pay for" concept still holds true. However, in a
crappy market, like now, you can get a lot more for less money.
All of this should be a reminder to every writer: know the market. You are
a commodity, just like peaches or plutonium. You must sell yourself and
your skills.
If what you have isn't in demand you have only a few options:
1) lower your price
2) sell something else
3) exit the market
Andrew Plato
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