OPPapers.com

Labor Cost

Labor Cost-Cutting in the 1990s
From U.S. Department of State
Labor Cost-Cutting in the 1990s
Exacerbating pay gaps between people of different sexes, race, or ethnic backgrounds was the general tension created in the 1980s and 1990s by cost-cutting measures at many companies. Sizable wage increases were no longer considered a given; in fact, workers and their unions at some large, struggling firms felt they had to make wage concessions -- limited increases or even pay cuts -- in hopes of increasing their job security or even saving their employers. Two-tier wage scales, with new workers getting lower pay than older ones for the same kind of work, appeared for a while at some airlines and other companies. Increasingly, salaries were no longer set to reward employees equally but rather to attract and retain types of workers who were in short supply, such as computer software experts.
Sponsored Links
Labor & WorkerExact search terms to find out about Labor Jobwww.decordot.com
U.S. Economic CrisisSee Why The United States Is No Longer A Competitive Countrywww.economyincrisis.org
Overtime Pay - F.L.S.A.Real-time online interview checks entitlement to overtime pay.getmanlaw.com/questionnaire/
This helped contribute even more to the widening gap in pay between highly skilled and unskilled workers. No direct measurement of this gap exists, but U.S. Labor Department statistics offer a good indirect gauge. In 1979, median weekly earnings ranged from $215 for workers with less than a secondary school education to $348 for college graduates. In 1998, that range was $337 to $821.
Even as this gap widened, many employers fought increases in the federally imposed minimum wage. They contended that the wage floor actually hurt workers by increasing labor costs and thereby making it harder for small businesses to hire new people. While the minimum wage had increased almost annually in the 1970s, there were few increases during the 1980s and 1990s. As a result, the...