Australian HR professionals might want to consider Switzerland as an option when choosing overseas working destinations, because, according to pay data released by Mercer, it’s the European country in which HR professionals are paid the most.

A survey of Northern Irish companies has shown that a quarter of participants (27%) are planning reductions in their employee numbers in 2010, although the situation has improved since 2008/9 when staff cuts were made by as many as two-thirds (65%) of organisations in the North.

The Winter 2010 issue of NACE’s Salary Survey shows the overall average offer to a bachelor’s degree graduate is $48,351, down 2 percent from the average offer of $49,353 made to Class of 2009 bachelor’s degree graduates. “The dip is not surprising, given the decreased demand we’re seeing for new college graduates,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. In August, employers responding to a NACE survey reported plans to trim their college hiring, hiring 7 percent fewer Class of 2010 grads than they hired from the Class of 2009. In addition, just 29 percent of those employers said they would increase their starting salary offers for the Class of 2010.

Female telecom engineers earn more than their male colleagues in some of the European countries. Belgium offers a positive gender gap of 14 percent, but women are also better off in Germany and Finland. Outside Europe we mostly see a negative gender gap for female telecom engineers, and sometimes a big one.

With stronger economic growth projected for the Middle East in 2010, companies in the UAE are expected to offer larger pay rises than last year as they compete for talent with firms in other parts of the region. Throughout much of the world, stagnating or falling salaries have been an unwelcome result of the global financial crisis. However, while not immune to the financial downturn, the Middle East was impacted less than other areas, with studies reporting that salary growth in the region was among the highest in the world in 2009. One survey, by Hewitt Associates, found that average salaries in the Middle East climbed 6.9% last year, while a separate study by Mercer revealed that salaries in the UAE grew by an average 3.4%-5.2% during the year.

Financial organizations have changed the mix of pay, moving emphasis away from short-term incentive schemes in favor of increased salary, deferred compensation schemes and modified incentive program design, according to a global survey by Mercer. The sector is also changing the nature of its short-term incentive (STI) schemes, with more focus on balanced, risk-adjusted performance measurement and deferral of bonus payouts over a multi-year timeframe.

As the world emerges from the downturn, a new report by global management consultancy Hay Group finds that where there is a scarcity of senior management talent, the laws of supply and demand have outweighed the impact of the crisis on senior managers pay, leading to greater pay gaps. In terms of management spending power, the Gulf States still dominate the rankings, although Chile, Romania and Turkey are surprising hot spots for managers.

Controversy over bankers’ bonuses raises fundamental questions, not just about the pay of senior executives, but also about the relative value of everyone’s work in society. A Bit Rich? brings an entirely new perspective to this issue, using a robust valuation method, Social Return on Investment, to quantify the social, environmental and economic impacts of six professions, looking at how each produces – or destroys – value for society. For each activity, the analysis measures the conventional economic returns, including job creation, but adds in, for example, attributable environmental degradation, and changes in well-being – either positive or negative - to individuals and communities in wider society.

Having struggled with cost-containment challenges during the past 18 months, which resulted in workforce reductions and salary freezes, more organizations are planning to grant pay increases in 2010 as the economy begins to show signs of improvement. According to Mercer’s 2009/2010 US Compensation Planning Survey Update, the number of organizations freezing salaries has declined compared to last year. While challenging economic conditions drove 30 percent of employers to freeze salaries across the board in 2009, just 14 percent are planning across-the-board freezes in 2010.

Financially rewarding employees has been put firmly on the backburner in 2009 as organisations struggle through the recession, according to a Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) survey conducted by YouGov of over 2,500 employees. Since 2008, there has been a drop of 17 percentage points in the proportion of people receiving a pay increase, falling from two-thirds (67%) to half (50%). Likewise, more employees have had a pay freeze (up from 24% in 2008 to 41% now). Yet, the proportion of employees who are satisfied with their pay rise has doubled since last year, from net+31% to net+62%*.

HR professionals in the public and voluntary sectors expect to see a dip in salary increases next year, while private sector professionals are more optimistic about their pay prospects, according to findings from this year’s Personnel Reward Survey from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and Croner Reward, part of Wolters Kluwer.

As optimism about an economic recovery grows, companies are unlikely to continue pay freezes into next year, according to new data. Mercer’s Salary Indicator (MSI) monitors the remuneration of major United Kingdom blue chip organizations quarterly and found that in Q3 2009 76% of respondents said their firm was not considering a pay freeze in 2010. This is a significant change from Q1 and Q2 when data showed that an immediate reaction to the downturn was to reduce or freeze salary increases.

Forty-two per cent of employees who started a new job in 2009 took a pay cut compared with just 28 percent in 2008, recent research has revealed.

Women in the United Kingdom earn up to 52% less than men, according to new research by the Fawcett Society and Unison that also found that while the average pay gap is 17.1% for the entire country, local figures vary significantly. According to the research the difference is 1.5% in some parts of London, but in West Somerset the figure stands at 52%.

With the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to publish its annual snapshot of the gap between what men and women workers are paid, the CIPD today reports evidence of employer practice and attitudes to measuring the gender pay gap in the workplace. The autumn 2009 CIPD/KPMG Labour Market Outlook (LMO) survey, conducted by IPSOS Mori, finds that fewer than 1 in 5 (18%) private sector employers measure their gender pay gap, the vast majority, and especially smaller employers, considering this unnecessary for their business. In the public sector, where equal pay monitoring is a statutory requirement, 2 in 5 (43%) employers only complete audits to tick the necessary bureaucratic box rather than as part of an underlying effort to advance gender equality.

Even though Finnish academics are less well paid than their colleagues in some countries, two-thirds are satisfied with their academic life. This fact - and much more - arises from an international Changing Academic Profession survey of academics and their perceptions of their work. Finland is one of more than 20 countries participating in the survey and a seminar on the Finnish results, organised by the University of Tampere, was held there last month.

It's a tough time, comparatively speaking, to be a chief executive - and it's even harder if you're a woman. According to a study from the Corporate Library, women chief executives are more likely to pay for poor performance than their male counterparts.

Global growth in real wages slowed dramatically in 2008 as a result of the economic crisis and is expected to drop even further this year despite signs of a possible economic recovery, the International Labour Organization said. “The continued deterioration of real wages worldwide raises serious questions about the true extent of an economic recovery, especially if government rescue packages are phased out too early. Wage deflation deprives national economies of much needed demand and seriously affects confidence”, said Manuela Tomei, Director, ILO Conditions of Work and Employment Programme and lead author of the study.

Approximately half of the companies that froze salaries and hiring in the past year now plan to unfreeze them in the next six months, according to the latest update to an ongoing series of surveys by Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm. Nevertheless, employers remain concerned about their ability, both currently and in the long run, to attract and retain critical-skill employees. According to the survey, more than half (54 percent) of employers that froze salaries plan to unfreeze them within the next six months, a sharp increase from 33 percent in August and 17 percent in June. Almost half (49 percent) also plan to reverse hiring freezes at least partially in the next six months, compared with 38 percent two months ago.

Nowhere has the effect of the financial crisis been more evident than in the job market, as a number of companies, particularly in the real estate sector, have been forced to make swingeing cuts in order to deal with the fall out from the global financial crisis. Kershaw Leonard has released its annual Cost of Living report, the sixth installment of the paper. After comparing the UAE market in mid-2008 to the California gold rush of the 1800s, the Dubai-based recruitment and HR consultancy has said that the market in 2009 now resembles 'survival of the fittest'.

Technology companies in the United States have experienced greater salary freezes than other nations, according to Aon Consulting's Radford, a leading provider of compensation intelligence to the technology and life sciences industries. These U.S. organizations also have seen significant shifts in equity compensation, as underwater stock options and exchange programs soared, and companies continue to incorporate restricted stock into their programs in lieu of options.

Employees are divided in how they receive changes made to their employment deal during the recession, according to research commissioned by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC). The research surveyed over 700 UK workers who have been impacted by changes to their reward (pay, benefits and bonuses), working hours or who work for organisations that have made redundancies.

On September 25, 2009, the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management (HKIHRM) made a submission to the Legislative Council’s Bills Committee on the Minimum Wage Bill regarding the public consultation on Minimum Wage Bill (the Bill). As stated in the submission paper, the objective of the minimum-wage legislation is to provide for a minimum wage that would prohibit the payment of excessively low wages to employees. Such legislation should also be designed to minimize the loss of low-paid jobs to ensure that Hong Kong’s economic growth and competitiveness are sustained and to safeguard the employment conditions of teenagers, low-skilled workers and the elderly.

Although the gender pay gap has narrowed slightly across the board compared with last year, with the most significant improvement being in HR, there still remains a long way to go with the gap remaining widest at high levels.

The economy took a hit: So too did starting salary offers to new college graduates, according to a new report published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). NACE’s Fall 2009 Salary Survey report shows that Class of 2009 bachelor’s degree graduates earned an average starting salary offer of $48,633—1.2 percent below the average $49,224 their Class of 2008 counterparts received.

Syzygy Consulting Group’s 2009 Pre-IPO and Private Company Total Compensation Survey reports that private companies will increase bonuses in 2010 and have also budgeted for more new hires. “In my discussions with CEO participants there is much optimism for growth in jobs and pay in 2010,” says David Broman, Syzygy’s CEO. “This follows a year when almost everyone – including CEOs – went without pay increases and had bonus pay cancelled altogether. But in 2010 the mantra is grow,” Broman reports. “Private companies are budgeting for higher bonuses in 2010, some returning to highs last seen in 2007.”

Despite the impending economic recovery, most U.S. companies are not planning to restore executive pay cuts or freezes made during the economic crisis in the next six months, according to a new survey by Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm. As they prepare for continuing increased public scrutiny of executive pay, many are avoiding further short-term changes and focusing instead on longer-term shifts toward better pay-for-performance and assessing their compensation programs within the new context of risk management.

While women in the United Kingdom rise to senior positions at a younger age than men, they are far less likely to hold such positions than their male colleagues are are likely to be paid less, according to figures by executive jobs Web site Experteer.

Figures, released by leading executive jobs website Experteer, paint a stark picture of sexual equality in the UK executive jobs market. According to the research whilst women attain senior positions at a younger age they are far less likely to hold such positions than their male colleagues and are likely to be paid less.

Organizations have faced unparalleled economic challenges this year and were forced to make tough decisions about their compensation and incentive plans. With the 2009 US Mercer Benchmark Database organizations can assess changes in the composition of the workforce and create competitive pay offerings to retain their top talent. The 2009 US Mercer Benchmark Database provides base pay, incentive pay and total compensation for more than 1,000 positions. Its newest feature—MBDspan—includes year-over-year comparisons by position and reports market movement, trends and employment indicators with Mercer perspective.

The Conference Board Annual Salary Increase Budgets Survey, released one week before Labor Day, reports the lowest yearly forecast for company salary budgets since the survey began 25 years ago. The 2010 median forecast salary increase budget is 3.00 percent in all employee categories, down a half percent from the previous year. (Salary increase budgets refer specifically to the pool of money that an organization dedicates to salary increases for the coming year. Generally, it is represented as a percentage of current payroll.)

The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill that would allow regulators to cap or prohibit Wall Street bonuses and compensation packages for executives if such pay practices are deemed to enduce or encourage excessive financial risk-taking that could damage economic conditions.

Over 1 in 3 (39 percent) U.S. employees reports that, due to economic downturn, they either have not received a raise or that their compensation actually has decreased in 2009, according to a new poll.

It’s been an interesting year for salary trends. Previously it was all about pay rises and benefits – now it’s about stability. As a result, you might find there is no increase on the table this year. This is unlikely to be a surprise given the global economic downturn and the cooling of the local climate, which has slowed the previously overheat ed and unsustainable job market. A significant change to current salary trends is not anticipated this fi nancial year either, so expect salaries to remain largely at current levels.

The most likely danger currently facing organisations in pay terms is not that their bonus schemes are encouraging risky behaviour. Instead, almost 300 HR professionals identify poor communication of reward as the most common threat to organisational performance, in a survey commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

As companies contend with the business changes brought on by the recession, many have increased their employee communication efforts. However, as they prepare for an eventual rebound, few companies are planning to increase their communication with workers about pay, benefits and business performance in general, according to a forthcoming report by Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm.

Nearly half of UK workers (47%) would welcome the opportunity to trade off benefits in order to increase their pay, according to a survey by Aon Consulting, a leading benefits and employee risk firm. Around 1,300 working adults across the UK were probed on the value they placed on employee benefits by being asked to choose whether they would be prepared to sacrifice some of their salary for better choice, or would prefer to give up benefits in order to increase their pay.

Pay raises for US workers are expected to rebound in 2010, following a year in which many companies slashed raises in the wake of the recession, according to a new survey by Watson Wyatt, the global consulting firm.

This was no time to roll over and just take what they gave you, says Ford Myers, author of 'Get the Job You Want, Even When No One's Hiring'. That's partly because anyone who receives a job offer right now is clearly the best qualified for it. So many people are applying for every position that hiring managers have to comb through hundreds of résumés and interview dozens of candidates. After all that, they don't want to go back to the interview process. They want you.

Starting salary offers to the college Class of 2009 have fallen slightly compared to offers received by the Class of 2008, according to new report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

The federal minimum wage is set to increase later this month as the job market shows signs of further decay. The federal minimum wage will go to $7.25 an hour on July 24 from its current level of $6.55, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

A Report on Business survey has found that Canadian companies are tweaking their formulas for rewarding those at the top but that reforms linking pay to performance have a way to go. With corporate executives facing unprecedented scrutiny of their pay packages, Canadian companies are drafting an array of complex new compensation plans for CEOs aimed at addressing shareholder demands for reform.

As a result of the economic climate, high-technology and life sciences companies anticipate shrinking or eliminating bonus payouts in addition to extending cost controls for their current fiscal year, according to new pay trends surveys by Aon Consulting's Radford, a leading provider of compensation intelligence to the high-technology and life sciences industries.

Strict limits have been placed on the bonuses of executives of companies (in particular banks and companies in the automotive industry) that have received State aid.

It takes chutzpah to ask for a raise in this economic climate, but it's not quite as crazy as it sounds. It seems that a little over two-thirds (67%) of U.S. employers are planning pay hikes for at least some of their employees before the end of this year, according to a new survey of 850 companies by compensation consultants Mercer.

Salaries reached a plateau during the past financial year in an unsurprising contrast to the continual increases of recent years, a recent salary survey has found.

Fortunately, negotiating a higher starting salary doesn’t have to be daunting. With some clever planning and a rock-solid game plan, you can get the best possible deal from your new employer without breaking a sweat.

For the first time, the majority of Fortune 100 companies now offer new salaried employees only a defined contribution (DC) plan, such as a 401(k), according to a new analysis by Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm. In another first, more Fortune 100 companies offer hybrid pension plans, such as account-based cash balance plans, rather than traditional defined benefit (DB) plans.

If you’re an engineer looking for work, there’s good news -- relatively speaking. Things are not as bad for engineers. At the same time, 2009 is going to be a tough year for everybody. Hiring and salaries will be flat, especially in the first quarters of the year. Companies are not skimping on research and development (R&D). For startup companies in particular, it’s still critical to hire technical professionals, to continue development cycles to get product out the door. No one is enjoying robust growth, but at small and medium-sized businesses in particular, there are jobs to be had.

In the last quarter of 2008, a significant group of Australians was living below the poverty line. For a single person, this meant living on less than A$415.06 (US$311) a week. These people were working full-time 40 hours a week, and probably much more. They received no employer superannuation and weren't entitled to concessions or pensions.