I have been fortunate to have a C-level above me, who believes in hiring juniors, take over in the last year. We are hiring now and mentoring, but not enough companies around me are doing this.
In the 2000s it was seen as very fashionable to job hop frequently, but it was a biased impression that was assumed to be nationwide while it was only really common in SV with the hugely lucrative signing contracts folks like Google, Meta et. all were handing out.
Again, the company has the control to avoid this.
I've worked at small companies that had revenue per employee of under $150,000.
The NYT has a revenue per employee of $470k ( https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=New+York+Times+revenue+... ) ... and a profit per employee of $50k ( https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=New+York+Times+profit+p... ).
https://www.levels.fyi/jobs/company/the-new-york-times-compa...
If an employee there got an offer in Big Tech, they're going to make more.
Until you hit Big Tech or companies trying to compete with them for talent, you can always find an employer that will pay more than your current one.
Critically: While this is the common perception, it is generally un-true.
Just look at how often you get it as reply when you tell people complaining about how it's "impossible to find staff" to hire juniors.
Even in the situations where it is true, the effect of hiring seniors and refusing to hire juniors (thus pushing them into other fields) creates the shortage of seniors that makes it un-true again.
There's just a trend of employers having hard numbers on their staffing expenses, but barely if at all accounting for hiring costs and opportunity costs.
Many simply get it in their head that a senior costs $X/year, and therefore utterly refuse to pay a junior $X/year when they had to spend a flat amount $Y on training them up. Even when the real cost per hire for the senior is vastly bigger than $Y.
Before the post-covid/AI layoffs, tech firms throwing away hundreds of thousands of dollars and years chasing seniors instead of just training up a junior was a common thing. So much so that it's a notable contributor to the overworking and burnout problems.
And it's still everywhere in the blue-collar world.
I’ve noticed younger generations are especially a lot less loyal, probably in response to abusive and exploitative employers and horror stories. But the downside is if employees have less loyalty themselves, then even caring companies and managers cannot justify being loyal to them. They end up losing that time invested and learn a hard lesson.
What inspires loyalty about someone paying under market rate because they refuse to see change?
Smart. Corporations aren't loyal either.
> even caring companies and managers
I'm not convinced there is such a thing.
They absolutely exist. Companies that train and support junior employees definitely exist even if it’s not because they care but some economic reason. But both types are more and more rare as younger generations become more and more likely to job hop.
You’re saying job hopping is smart - maybe it is. But my point is this causes ALL companies to invest as little as possible and to disregard junior candidates. Even if they wish they could have things be different.
So have companies.
This goes both ways and labor is just reacting to the "it's just business" excuse companies have been using for over 30 years.