It's a clear signal, the company values you less than when it hired you. When leaving a company like that I find it best to frame it in a way that they were unhappy with you. "Hey look I know you are trying to spare my feelings, but that is 6 percent less than inflation, clearly you want me out of here but didn't have the courage to lay me off. Thanks for the heads up, I've found another role."

It really seems like you are most valued the day you are hired, with your value declining by the day.

The whole concept of value in terms of business transactions seems weird to me. It is ill defined and unactionable.

Either you agree to buy or sell at a certain price, or not. “Value” plays no role in the determination of prices.

Whether you agree to buy or sell at a certain price is entirely dependent on whether such price is higher or lower than the value of the trade, in your own subjective assessment.

There are other meanings of the word "value" in business transactions, but that is probably the most common and fundamental one.

>Whether you agree to buy or sell at a certain price is entirely dependent on whether such price is higher or lower than the value of the trade, in your own subjective assessment.

The subjective assessment of the "value of the trade" is then a function of the subject's alternatives, which is usually how much someone else will pay or accept from them.

I find the term utility to be more beneficial than value, due to it being less likely to be confused. As a boss, I would say I value all the employees equally, in human terms. But the employees provide different amounts of utility/$. Although I can see how people use value and utility interchangeably.

> The subjective assessment of the "value of the trade" is then a function of the subject's alternatives, which is usually how much someone else will pay or accept from them.

I agree that it is a function of the alternatives, but the operative alternative here is not trading. The best way to assess value is that which you lose by taking something away, like taking a player out of a team or a customer out of your book of business

Well, what the business will pay for you declines the longer you stay.

Every choice in life is a gamble. Many or most businesses are betting that their labor vendors (employees) will accept less and less. Based on the statistics of the past 5 decades, this seems to have been a good bet.

So in order for us to keep our value, we'd better switch as often as possible, I guess. As long as companies aren't giving reasonable raises, at least.

Isn't that basically how tech careers work? We switch as often as vesting or the willingness of better companies to take us allows.

That is how price discovery in any market works. The more often buyers and sellers engage in transparent transactions, the more knowledge market participants have of supply and demand curve movements.

Note that for buying and selling labor, price is not only the amount of currency being exchanged, but will also include things like work schedules, work environments, break time, location, etc. I prefer to think of it as $x per a certain amount of quality of life at work.

That's how it feels to me.

I started at a company in mid January, and they did annual reviews in June/July. After review, I 'merited' a 4% raise. But... because I'd only been there since January, they prorated the 4% raise to 2%. I never quite understood their logic, but also didn't stay through the end of the year.

EDIT: this was... 2004/2005 era.

IMHO quite generous by them, in my former companies you skipped the raise talk if you joined less than 9 months ago. Makes sense, because you just negotiated your salary on entry.

> Makes sense, because you just negotiated your salary on entry.

Not really, as in this field that is about halfway through your tenure. Market has certainly shifted a lot in 9 months past.

18 month tenure seems short, even for IT employees. Better off just staffing with contractors if that's truly expected.

Devs seem to last two years, but they make the decision to leave well before that, so you need to get a retention offer in before they start the job search.

Any data on that?

Only anecdotal, but that seems to be how long people last. There are no devs that I knew at either of my past two jobs that remain. Virtually all friends report similar experiences.

My experience goes the other way. 75%+ have been at my company for 5+ years.

Inventing arbitrary formulae to calculate your wage is merely a dishonest negotiation tactic. Govt companies do it all the time, don't read too much into it. Also, it's perfectly fine to renegotiate your wage once you're off your probation period, as once you're in, you have a better idea of your worth to the company. Just don't do it too often.