Dive Brief:
- Nearly all workers surveyed (95%) said their wages have not kept up with the climbing cost of living, according to Monster’s 2025 Work Watch Report. At the same time, only one in 10 workers said they have received either a raise or a salary adjustment to cover inflation.
- To deal with inflation, 44% of workers have gone on the job hunt for higher paying positions. While 38% of workers said inflation hasn’t affected their career, 17% have needed to take on a second job or part-time work to get by, the report found.
- Workers said they expected more money from their employers for a handful of reasons, including the increased cost of living, taking on more responsibilities and having in-demand skills, per the report.
Dive Insight:
“Inflation continues to drive up the cost of living, with 85% of workers expecting increasing salaries to offset these pressures; however, only 11% have received raises commensurate with inflation, so far, creating a significant gap,” Giacomo Santangelo, a Monster economist, said in a statement. “The financial strain is evident.”
Eight-two percent of workers have had to tap into their savings to stay afloat, and 8% more think they will need to in the near future, the report found. At the same time, 69% of employees have cut back their spending on non-essentials, 43% have leaned more heavily on credit or loans, and 41% have reduced their retirement contributions.
Apart from wages not being adjusted for inflation, more than a third of workers also said they didn’t receive a bonus they expected in the past year, and 15% had their salaries cut, the report found.
On the employer side, a third said workers’ salary expectations are putting pressure on the bottom line, and 42% said they expect to face a challenge in meeting workers’ salary expectations in the recruiting process.
Despite pressures, employers still expect to increase compensation budgets by 3.3% for merit increases and 3.7% for total salary increases for nonunion workers in 2025, a recent Mercer report found, and experts say salaries will remain steady this year.
