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The latest trend: pay cuts and furloughs?

July 6, 2009 on 2:41 pm | In All categories, polls, salary | No Comments

A recent article in The Economist caught my attention by noting that some of the latest cost-cutting moves by employers — namely pay cuts and reduced hours — are getting quiet acceptance by many working Americans.

The graph from the article (shown here) shows just how prevalent these measure have become in recent months.

A recent poll (June 2009) on Yahoo! HotJobs had similar results: Almost half of the respondents (48%) said that they have their pay cut or hours reduced by their employers in the last year.

It’s not like employees have many options today but to accept these sorts of cuts. But how you handle the situation can still make a big difference. For some ideas, see “Four Types of Pay Cuts, and What You Can Do About Them.”