I’ve seen this happen over the years and I’m always curious why there isn’t a discussion beforehand that offers the “overearners” a chance to stay at a reduced salary. I’ve asked people who were in those positions, and they’ve often indicated that they would have stayed at a lower salary, at least for a while.

I would have stayed on with temporary pay cut, especially in this economy.

I think it comes down to bad management, my direct manager didn’t even know I was getting cut.

Lower salaries really are just paying employees to look for new jobs on the company's dime. If my pay was lowered 10%, I'd be looking immediately.

At one of the companies I worked at, the strategy was the opposite. Lower employee salaries in the hopes that people would quit.