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I am employed as IT project manager within NYC-area banking industry. I will be three years at my IB in a few months without a raise during tenure. My ratings have been good and I am on the promotion track but that would just put me back at level I had been at at other banks. I was over-qualified when I joined but my manager put my at highest salary allowed to bring me in. That is their strategy unfortunately - lower band at highest salary then no raises.

Back in 2018 after 5 months of search, it was my best offer but 10% less than last job. I am in mid-40s and I lead a team of 5 BAs globally as well as oversee 6m in portfolio budget.

I am just struggling to understand "market". I go through periods of contacts on LinkedIn. It is strange - one day 3 people and the next few weeks nobody at all. Problem is the WFH wage arbitration as well as H1b salary pressures that continue in area. I am getting $40/hr to $65 hr pretty regularly for WFH postion. It might do well in Ohio but you will get crushed in NYC. With COVID, I think there is a bit of game right now where recruiters looking for unemployed willing to accept rate but it was same story three years ago. Back in 2018, I talked to a dozen recruiters who helped me look in 2007 and 2012 and they all seemed to indicate that NYC banking/financial IT services was no longer profitable.

My goal is decide when enough is enough and when the "market" has spoken? Would you wait 3 mos of similiar low rates, 6 mos or next year once COVID abates? Do people see WFH forever in their company? We have been told no return to office on horizon. I can survive on salary now and no current concern of layoff but with major inflation here with insane Fed money printing, I am worried that WFH may pressure wages further in NYC?

Has anyone pulled up and left? I had two phone interviews with higher pay a few months back but I did not get offer. No phone interviews in several months but much of it is b/c I turn down roles when low rate is mentioned. Thanks.

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  • whatever happens, NYC is likely to remain somewhat "exceptional" longer than most other places, due to being the financial center of the US. If your specialty is managing a global team for a local bank, you're about as well positioned as possible for the scenario you fear. The other stuff is anybody's guess
    – Pete W
    May 3, 2021 at 15:08
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    Hi OntheMound, welcome to Workplace. It's not clear what your actual question is. I see some semi-ranting and lots of "?" characters. If you're asking us to help you decide what you should do, that's a subjective question that is not a good fit for this site. If you can rewrite it to be more objective like "What aspects should I consider when making my decision?" it might be a better fit.
    – shoover
    May 3, 2021 at 15:13
  • Also, you mention "Back in 2018 after 5 months of search..." -- were you out of work while you were searching, or did you have a job? If you didn't have a job, then any salary that was offered you was infinitely greater than your last one (which was zero), not "10% less."
    – shoover
    May 3, 2021 at 15:17
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    Questions require a goal that we can address. Rather than explaining the difficulties of your situation, explain what you want to do to make it better. For more information, [see this meta post] (stackoverflow.blog/2011/01/17/real-questions-have-answers).
    – mxyzplk
    May 3, 2021 at 15:45
  • hi @OntheMound (1) Welcome new user, your question looks interesting (2) Nobody was being "snotty" to you. (3) Could you click edit and just clarify your question? I don't know what you are asking?
    – Fattie
    May 3, 2021 at 15:49

3 Answers 3

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Has anyone pulled up and left? Should I wait another 6 months or year?

I'm in a different industry and did this before COVID-19, but I moved from a high cost area a decade ago to well outside town where the cost is much less when I was able to work from home.

Precisely because I was starting a family, I thought it critical to have a savings cushion rather than a fancy address. In my opinion there is not a lot of point to waiting/procrastinating, it just gives you less leeway if something hits the fan. Expenses don't stay the same with kids, they increase pretty quickly. It might not be the best for everyone though, you'd know your specific scenario better.

COVID-19 is an issue of it's own, there is no way of knowing how the economy will be in the future. I've been through epidemics in a tiny country and they get politicised so fast that you just have no idea. The only thing you can be sure of is that it will never be the same as before. Financial industry is taking big hits right now.

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    I would argue that COVID-19 was politicized fairly quickly universally, epidemics are serious business, and COVID-19 effected countries of all sizes. The NYC lifestyle has probably been changed forever, what that lifestyle will become, has yet to be determine and certainly cannot be predicted until the current epidemic is considered to be "over" by the masses.
    – Donald
    May 3, 2021 at 16:51
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    @JoeStrazzere that's an excellent point, whatever eventuates it always best to play safe in a crisis and consolidate and conserve your personal resources.
    – Kilisi
    May 3, 2021 at 19:29
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My goal is decide when enough is enough and when the "market" has spoken? Would you wait 3 mos of similiar low rates, 6 mos or next year once COVID abates?

You're getting ahead of yourself. It's not about the market, it's about what you are willing to sign up for. The concept of a "market" is really just an aggregation of a sufficiently large set of people and what they were willing to sign up for.

This is the early adopter question. Do you buy in early to maximize the early adopter benefits, at the cost of making more of a jump in the unknown? At what point is an adopter no longer an early adopter?
I can't decide that for you, this is something we all have to decide for ourselves. I'm an eager early adopter for technology and I quickly invest in a new technology, but I'm not equally adventurous with my career prospects and I tend to wait for a stable market so I can make a well-justified high-confidence move.

It is true that the market eventually starts feeding into what people sign up for, as knowledge of the market drives people's expectations based on how they feel "the market is", which is just another way of saying "what other people get on average".

But the WFH-breeze created by COVID has wiped the slate, and there is no post-COVID "market" as of yet. Once again, the "market" will eventually be formed once there has been enough data on a large set of people and what job vs salary they were willing to sign up for.

  • Will job offers on average lower because of WFH?
  • Will non-remote jobs increase their financial offer to offset the lack of WFH in their offer?
  • Will companies who don't do WFH post-COVID bleed employees, driving them to increase their offers to retain staff?
  • Will housing prices be affected by people no longer needing to be geographically close to their place of business?

These are all valid questions, and they will be answered in time. For now, we can only make educated guesses as to the direction of these changes, but not really the size of them.

On a personal note, as a detached consultant I have opted to move to a permanently WFH-friendly internal position, as I personally expect that consultancy will soon start predominantly getting contracts from the companies that bleed staff because they refuse WFH-friendly policies, and those are not the kinds of companies I'll enjoy working with. But this is just a personal estimation, I have no concrete proof of that. I'm just getting ahead of the issues.

It's currently simply not possible to project about a future post-COVID world and how its markets behave, since this new WFH-approach is actually the first time we've seen this happening. During the last pandemic (Spanish flu), there was no WFH because the technology wasn't at the required level.

The short answer is we simply cannot tell, and in the end it's always up to you to decide whether you're happy with a company's offering or not.

Do people see WFH forever in their company? We have been told no return to office on horizon.

This is a struggle between employers and employees, and it's not clear yet where the ball will drop.

I personally know companies who will immediately revert to full office work when they can, those who intend to stay remote for most if not full time, and those who are opening up to a more hybrid approach.

The only reasonable judgment we can make now is that it's clear that the average WFH stance will be more favorable compared to the pre-COVID world. Depending on the sector, certain companies have seen no dip in productivity, and some have even noted a positive effect (my current company being one of them).

I am getting $40/hr to $65 hr pretty regularly for WFH postion. It might do well in Ohio but you will get crushed in NYC.

As with all things, a cause has an effect. If we increase the WFH nature of employment, this also loosens the constraint of geographic cost of living.

Why on Earth would a company pay you more than Bob for a full remote position, just because of where you live, if neither you or Bob are ever going to come into the office? You and Bob's location doesn't matter to the company anymore, so it shouldn't factor into the salary they offer.

In the hypothetical "everyone goes remote where they can" world, this will see a massive redistribution of population, as people will figure out that they can go live in a more remote and cheaper area without even having to change jobs/income. This will decrease real estate prices near CBDs, and it will eventually raise prices in more remote areas.

While this is not a workplace comment per se, I don't really see that as a bad thing. I expect that this redistribution of population density might be a struggle while it happens, e.g. people who own city real estate will lose real estate value, and people who want to buy real estate in cheaper areas will have to deal with raised prices (which is the anti-gentrification argument).

But over the long haul it might do a lot of good in other areas, as it dramatically reduces the need for a densely populated city, which leads to dense traffic and localized pollution (air, noise, light, ...), a high need for long distance food transportation from agricultural to metropolitan areas, ... There will also be negatives attached to this, e.g. physical services have to spread out further due to a more spread out population.


But the summary to your question is that we don't know yet how big the eventual impact will be, and while a post-COVID world is in sight, how the markets will behave can't be accurately predicted as we're not there yet and we don't actually have historical data to build a projection on top of.

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I don't understand what's being asked here.

(Does OP want to stay or go? Or what?)

But the answer to this question:

I guess my question is what is waiting time to decide when the "market" has spoken?

The answer to that question is very simple.

The market speaks instantly.

Any time I've ever waited for confirmation, I've missed it. As soon as the market speaks it has spoken and that's it.

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  • JoeS - I have absolutely no idea, because I do not understand anything at all in the question! :O I don't know which "market" is meant, or what the OP desires! :O However (of course IMO) the absolutely general answer to the issue "How quickly do you have to respond once a market has 'spoken'" is "instantly".
    – Fattie
    May 3, 2021 at 16:31
  • Hi JS. So, looking at your "comment because they closed the damned question!" up above! I would suggest, you're saying: "Wait until you have a solid feel for 'what the market is saying' and then decisively but cautiously act on that." What I am saying is "Wait until you have a solid feel for 'what the market is saying' and then act instantly, any minutes you waste from there are bad news." To just repeat myself, IMO: "the general answer to the issue "How quickly do YOU have to respond once a market has 'spoken'" is: 'instantly'"
    – Fattie
    May 3, 2021 at 16:40
  • really I can only apologize @JoeStrazzere for sort of randomly picking a question, I wanted to answer, from the general mix there! :O
    – Fattie
    May 3, 2021 at 16:52
  • All, thanks for replies. Fattie, I was referring to job market specifically. If you are looking 3 months and get same rates..or 6 months..or a year. With COVID, it is very hard to gauge and wondering what others thought who are going through a job change. I guess I was looking for discussion rather than answer. It is closed
    – OntheMound
    May 3, 2021 at 20:11

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