A Just A Sec Exclusive!
By Teresa Illiano
This time last year, Julia was earning $68,000 a year as a legal secretary in midtown Manhattan.
After getting laid off earlier this year, she interviewed for three similar positions requiring the same or even more challenging skill sets. The highest salary offered among those three jobs was $48,000.
"I think employers are definitely taking advantage of the recession and the tough job market," said Julia. "I think they know how many applicants they have to choose from, and they're going to offer as little as possible, regardless of what you happen to be worth."
Julia didn't get the impression that any of the companies she interviewed with were suffering financially. At least not enough to underpay her so dramatically. "If they're doing so badly, maybe they should start by selling the overpriced designer furniture in the waiting area. Or the original Lichtenstein over the receptionist's desk, you know?"
Deanna, another legal secretary in a highly specialized area of law, was laid off before the end of 2008. Her employer cited economic issues when laying off a handful of support personnel. Deanna was earning $65,000 annually.
Now Deanna is learning that her former employer is hiring new secretaries. They haven't asked Deanna or any of her fired co-workers back. Instead, they're filling in the gaps with cheaper labor.
"One of them is supporting my guys, so she's essentially my replacement. I have it on good authority that this new chick is making $52,000," Deanna told us. That's more than $10,000 less than Deanna was earning for supporting the same people and performing the same work.
Are employers using the economy as an excuse to clean house of their higher-paid secretaries? Are employers taking advantage of the skyrocketing number of unemployed workers to underpay skilled secretaries and pocket the difference, simply because they can?
Employers may think they're striking a savvy deal now, but will their decisions come back to haunt them later?
It already happened for "Neil", an attorney in a very small firm in midtown, who agreed to talk to us if we didn't reveal his identity.
Neil had the same secretary for eight years before she resigned to move out of state. "She was terrific," he said. "She really knew her stuff."
When it came time to find his secretary's replacement, Neil saw an opportunity to put some money back in his pocket. "I did hire a gal for about $20,000 less (than what I paid my former secretary). I admit it, I was trying to save a buck. Well, 20,000 bucks, to be specific."
But within weeks, Neil ended up firing the secretary who'd work for $20,000 less, "...because she couldn't hold a candle to my old secretary."
Would Neil have been as quick to fire his new secretary if he didn't think he had a huge pool of unemployed secretaries to choose from?
"No question," Neil confessed. "I felt like I had better options, so I interviewed again, and hired another girl."
Neil hired the new new secretary for, again, $20,000 less than his stellar, eight-year secretary.
"I fired her too," said Neil. "She just didn't have the right instincts, the right sense of responsibility."
Neil now has a secretary he thinks he'll stick with -- as long as she'll have him. She has the experience and qualities to do the job well, and Neil bit the bullet and offered her a salary comparable to that of his original secretary.
Neil says, "I really think when you try to cut corners and take advantage of a situation like this (recession), you come up short in the end. I really do think you get what you pay for."
When a secretary is laid off and then, out of necessity, has to take a job for significantly less pay, will she resent it? Will she perform her job with the same enthusiasm and loyalty knowing that she's worth much more? And if she suspects for even a moment that her employer could have met her most recent salary but simply decided not to, how devoted an employee will she be?
Diane weighs in:
"If I had to take a job for $20,000 less than what I was making just a few months ago, and then the economy got better and I had more options, I would not hesitate to leave. They were looking out for their own asses when they tried to get a super secretary for cheap. Well, I have to look out for my ass, too, and do what's best for me."
Some unemployed secretaries are refusing to work for significantly less than they were making before their lay-off, because they feel it does irreparable damage to the work history they've built.
"It took me twelve years to get to $70,000," Lois told us. "If I take a job for, say, $50,000 now, how can I expect to build on that $70,000 ever again? Any job I get in the future will pay me based on the $50K. It's like all those years of work and loyalty never happened. I got pushed back to a level from when I was still in my twenties. It's smarter for me to stay on unemployment and wait and see."
Some secretaries will hold out for indicators of a stronger economy before seeking a job similar to what they had. Others will have to take what they can get. But when that brighter day comes (and it's bound to, eventually), those compromising secretaries just might leave their cunning employers in the lurch, without a second thought.
Like Neil said: you get what you pay for.
