'People Lucky Enough to Find New Work are often Taking Steep Wage Cuts'

Are you surprised?:

New Jobs Come With Lower Wages, by Sudeep Reddy, WSJ: During the recession, people who lost long-held jobs struggled to find new employment and often took substantial pay cuts if they did find new work. Little appears to have changed after the recession ended, a new Labor Department report shows. ...

People lucky enough to find new work are often taking steep wage cuts. Of the displaced workers who lost full-time wage and salary jobs from 2009-2011 and were reemployed by January, just 46% were earning as much or more than they did in their lost job. A third of them reported earnings losses of 20% or more. Both figures are almost identical to those from the prior report. (See our article from last year about these workers: “Downturn’s Ugly Trademark: Steep, Lasting Drop in Wages”)