I keep reading stories about how it's a puzzle that more jobs are being created but wages aren't going up. Part of it seems to be this new ingenuity at finding marginal workers and getting them to take jobs.
Paul Krugman has a theory that the recession has made companies averse to raising wages, because it's hard to claw wage gains back if there's a recession. So instead they are offering bonuses, because if a recession hits you can just say "we don't have money for bonuses this year" which is a lot easier than saying "everybody's salary is going down." I'd say, while the cause (recession) is right, the companies are doing even more than switching to bonuses: it's also aggressive recruiting, allowing remote work, making workplaces cool, inflating the job's prestige, etc.
Paul Krugman has a theory that the recession has made companies averse to raising wages, because it's hard to claw wage gains back if there's a recession. So instead they are offering bonuses, because if a recession hits you can just say "we don't have money for bonuses this year" which is a lot easier than saying "everybody's salary is going down." I'd say, while the cause (recession) is right, the companies are doing even more than switching to bonuses: it's also aggressive recruiting, allowing remote work, making workplaces cool, inflating the job's prestige, etc.