> Management capitalizes on the difference between the value that is created and how much you're paid. (according to yet another liberal perspective that I don't like). So why would they increase your wage, if other companies are doing layoffs ?

Right - any employer is going to pay as little as they think they can get away with. As an employee, you have to convince them of two things: that you can make more elsewhere, and that you provide more value to them than your labor costs.

> Yes, but from your perspective, the perspective of unions (or from a Trotskyist perspective where workers create value and collectively decide to share it). Not HR's

Well... at least in the environment that I'm operating in (the US), employment is an arrangement at the discretion of either party. I'm saying that significant inflation is justification for the employee to request modification.

> I had the "opportunity" to graduate in times when more layoffs were happening than nowadays (covid). And I can tell you how these companies that still hired were accepting the cheapest applicants, instead of sharing the value they would create (I was even hired bellow the minimum wage, because the local government was promoting contracts of 'apprenticeships' as a loophole to not pay engineers who were desperate for a first experience)

I'm almost 40, and have been in tech in some form for almost two decades. From my perspective the labor market is cyclical.

The current state isn't nearly as bad as it would appear based on my observations. I'm still getting lots of recruiter spam, and my network is still sharing open positions privately - if anything, that avenue in particular has _increased_ since the pandemic. Yes, layoffs are happening, but companies are still hiring as well. That seems to be doubly true for more experienced engineers.

At the end of the day, everyone has to decide what they'll accept. I know that I would take less compensation to continue working where I am than I'd require if I were to be wooed away to another employer. I know the environment where I work now, and I believe in our "mission". A new employer would represent a significant additional risk to me, and additional compensation would be required to offset that.

> So HR doesn't care about your value. They check your market value, and what you would bring to the company for that market value (the difference being their loss or their profits)

I agree :)

The value I bring to the company is the _upper bound_ to what compensation I could reasonably ask for. My cost to the company is a function of my total compensation.

I don't expect to capture all of that. From my perspective, my employer is enabling me to convert my labor into real value. That service is itself valuable, as I don't have a way to do it on my own at the same rate.

I _do_ expect that inflation will mean that my employer will raise the cost of our product over time - because money is worth less. Some of that increase can be passed on to me, and to other employees that are willing and able to ask for it.

> They don't pay you because they like you, nor because they like engineering. They need their work to be done, in an efficient and reasonably cheap manner ! (and they would happily pay you a minimum wage or bellow, if that were your market value)

Agreed, and I have no issues with that. That's how I _want_ it to work!

I wouldn't be willing to work for less than about 2/3 of what I'm making today, because that's what I can earn completely on my own. Anything over that means employment is the more profitable option for me. At that point, it's a matter of asking:

* am I producing more value for the company than I cost?
* am I able to find a more acceptable arrangement elsewhere?