Job and Wage Satisfaction on the Rise

Despite shouldering record amounts of student debt and being less likely to own a home than older people were at the same age, millennials and Generation Z workers report slightly more satisfaction with pay than their parents’ generation.

A survey of 2,000 employees by The Conference Board, a business research group, finds that 46 percent of workers under 35 were happy with their compensation in 2018, up from 36 percent just a year earlier.

This is the first year in which young workers reported higher wage satisfaction than employees over 55. Compared with the 46 percent of millennials, 44 percent of baby boomers are satisfied with their pay. Meanwhile, the highest rate of satisfaction—48 percent—came from employees ages 35 to 54, most of whom would be described as Generation X.

In the previous seven years of data from The Conference Board, those under 35 tended to report being significantly less happy with their earnings. In 2011, for instance, only 29 percent of young workers were satisfied, compared with 35 percent of those over age 55 and 41 percent of those ages 35 to 54.

Perhaps the shift can be attributed in part to faster wage growth among millennials. In 2018 median weekly wages rose 5 percent overall. For young workers, they increased 7.6 percent.

The majority of workers still report dissatisfaction with their compensation, but that doesn’t necessarily mean most American employees are miserable. There’s more to a job than money, after all. In fact, the job satisfaction rate—53.7 percent—is the highest it’s been since The Conference Board began conducting research in 2003.

Job satisfaction plunged after the 2008 recession, hitting a low of 42.6 percent in 2010. It has gradually increased since then. Part of the rise in overall job satisfaction may be due to the increased sense of job security. Nearly 60 percent (59.2 percent) reported satisfaction with the security of their employment in 2018, up from 53.8 percent the previous year.

From: BenefitsPro