A newspaper article last week posed the question: Why do bosses pay new hires better than loyal staffers? The article looked at the Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker data on job stayers versus job switchers and noted that job switchers are getting a bigger percentage gain in their pay than job stayers.
Does that mean that people who switch jobs are paid better than those who stay with their employer? Well, it's useful to keep in mind that job switchers and job stayers differ along a number of dimensions, and perhaps the most important is that job switchers tend to earn less than job stayers. For example, using the data that go into constructing the Wage Growth Tracker we see that the median job switcher's pay in 2017 was around 9 percent lower than the median pay of those who stayed in their job. So even though the 2017 median wage growth for job switchers was 3.9 percent versus 3.0 percent for job stayers, those who change jobs are typically paid less than those who don't.
Why is the median pay higher for people who remain in their jobs? For one thing, job stayers in Wage Growth Tracker data are relatively older, with commensurately more work experience. In addition, job stayers tend to be more educated and hence more likely to be in jobs that require specialized skills. Economic theory also suggests that holding a higher-paying job reduces the likelihood of quitting. The argument goes that as a worker's wage increases, other employers will make fewer offers that exceed the person's minimally acceptable wage (their reservation wage). As a result, as an individual moves into better paying jobs, on-the-job search efforts and expected wage growth decline.
So what should you make of the higher median wage growth enjoyed by job switchers in the Wage Growth Tracker data? I view it as an indication that the demand for labor is strong and provides plentiful opportunities for less experienced and less educated workers to improve their circumstances by changing jobs. A job has an option value, and the possibility of getting a better-paying job offer is high when the worker's reservation value is low and the frequency of offers is high.
By John Robertson, a senior policy adviser in the Atlanta Fed's research department