Out Of Bids? Companies Back To Cutting Pay

[00:00:00.500] - Dan

Hello again, and welcome to Books and the biz. Rich, how are you doing?

[00:00:11.750] - Rich

I'm good, Dan. How are you?

[00:00:13.500] - Dan

I am very good. Though I think my wages are getting cut, because that's what we're here to talk about today, is are wages actually going down? Let me pull this up. We'll just jump right into it today. I will share a Wall Street Journal article with you, which I know you've seen, but still it's good to see it again. So the title of the article is, Pay for new hires is shriveling. After years of salary increases, businesses across the economy say they're reducing starting salaries for recruits. I'm calling BS on this one. At least with the people I'm talking with, they are not talking about any salary reductions other than how can they reduce salaries. I'm going to scroll down here. I know you had brought this up. They have this for those who are listening, you're not going to be able to see this, but we can definitely share a link in the podcast for it. They list out several different technology or industries, and it starts with technology. According to this, the difference is between '21, '22, and '23, which it does say '23, but the information that we get from the government isn't always up to date.

[00:01:39.760] - Dan

We'll just leave it at that. But anyway, with technology, we're seeing almost a 20 % drop in salaries according to this. Transportation and storage, we're seeing another, we'll say, 15 % drop. Looks like arts and entertainment, which everyone's on strike now, is probably even lower than that at this point. They're about 12 % drop over baseline. Business, which business is a very broad term, are we talking about front line staff? Are we talking about middle managers? Are we talking about executives? I think that's all over the board there, but they're again about a 12 % drop. Manufacturing, which according... I mean, this again is where I'm going to call it BS. They're saying about 10 % drop in salaries there. I'm not seeing that nor hearing that from any of my clients. Retail is about dead heat even. Technically, they're down from years of growth over the last couple. But I know a lot of retail and restaurant, they're still struggling to find people. Finance and insurance, hey, this is your wheelhouse. They're down, but they're up. How's that? So off baseline, they're still on the plus side. But according to this, down a little bit from 2022.

[00:03:02.740] - Dan

If you're in education, so teachers talking about not making as much money, well, according to this, so here's your chance to call BS teachers. They're actually saying they're almost eight to 10 % over baseline there, and they're up from the two previous years. Health care, as we know, is just a constant state of throwing money at things. So they're growing. They're over looks like about 22 % upin growth, though according to this, there's about a 1 % drop over the previous year. And if you are a veterinarian and you are not making money, please call one of us, because either your books are wrong or something's going on in your operations, because according to this map, you're almost 30 % over baseline and at least another... Oh, well, gosh, it showed that it was in '22 or '21, there was about 22 % growth. In '22, it dropped down by 20 %. So there was almost a 40 % swing there. And now it's swung back completely the other way to almost a 30 % increase. So don't know what's going on in animal care, but I will say this, you have better be making money or you're doing something wrong.

[00:04:19.850] - Dan

And yes, you do need to call us. Shameless plug there. Rich, what was your take on all this?

[00:04:26.850] - Rich

Well, I think the chart itself was very telling. And I think I always have to take the media's presentations a little bit with a grain of salt and say, Wait a second, let me dig into some of the detail here because Wall Street Journal is a very trusted source.

[00:04:46.360] - Dan

But- They're better than most, I'll give them that.

[00:04:48.540] - Rich

Better than most. But even them, when I looked at the article, I said, I really think I have to dig in a little bit further here. The chart is very telling. I think this is what the media and everybody else is looking to finally get some data on seeing that things are settling down. But I think the chart is telling me that it's similar to mortgage rates.

[00:05:14.050] - Rich

I'm.

[00:05:14.920] - Rich

Not necessarily expecting them to come down too fast. I don't necessarily think that everything in this chart is 100% perfect because I read it or I'm reading it, I think the same way most people are, which is, Oh, okay, we're finally seeing that this stuff is settling down. But when you read the article, it's really only talking about new hires.

[00:05:38.820] - Dan

Right.

[00:05:39.630] - Rich

And they specifically say in the Wall Street Journal article, which I'm very happy that they did, it says it's only four % of the people who are actually working or five % something to that effect. It's a low percentage of overall. So I think it's a leading indicator, but I don't necessarily think it's the aha moment that everybody's looking for on the entire employed economy.

[00:06:03.400] - Dan

Yes. Yeah, I mean, this is really your fresh out of school, which as we know, school just got out a couple of months ago, or people just graduated a couple of months ago. So they're just entering the workforce. You're talking about in retail and restaurant anyway. These are the people that are the cashiers, the stockers, very we'll say low, I don't want to say low talent, but I do want to say low skill requirement. They might be highly skilled people in some ways, but you're getting a job to stock shelves and put boxes in the right location. So you're not seeing... We're not talking about somebody, for example, in finance that's got 15 years of accounting experiences as a CPA, tax accountant or done some other financial work.

[00:06:58.710] - Rich

Yeah. That's the funny part. I don't hear anybody from all of my friends who are in the accounting industry, all the people that I work with, because a lot of times I connect with accountants all the time. The auditors come in, they're looking at things, I'm working with them. And it's always the same story that you can't find the people, the people don't do... Things are different now and the cost has been driven up because for what they have to do, they need more people. And it really comes down to supply and demand. So I'm in the New York area, so I would tell you that that part of this chart, no way. There's no way you could tell me that salaries are dropping or even on the new hires, I just don't think that they're dropping.

[00:07:47.140] - Dan

Exactly. I'm seeing the same thing here in the Midwest. So it takes a little bit longer sometimes for stuff to reach the middle. But back to my previous discussions, we still have a population shortage. We have people coming into the workforce. We have more jobs than there are people. I can walk by any fast food restaurant, and typically the wages are starting somewhere around $12 to $14 an hour minimum. I live out in a rural area, so we do see some of the restaurants being able to pay less and still get employees, but for the most part in metro areas such as Milwaukee and Madison, for example, 18 to 20 is about the average I'm seeing there. I've seen as high as advertised, $25 an hour at a fast food restaurant, which to me just boggles my mind because, well, it also explains why your Big Mac is now costing close to 20 bucks. But yeah, it's just crazy. Actually, we did run a survey with one of my clients. So they're in staff augmentation. They're placing people all the time for temporary positions. And her biggest question was, well, what do I pay these people?

[00:08:58.220] - Dan

So we surveyed her clients, because their clients also have permanent staff. And we started asking them, well, what are they paying? And in most cases, they were paying higher than she was, obviously, for full-time. But as a part time or temporary working position, she's also got to keep competitive with that. Otherwise she can't get the temp workers that they need to fill in when they have open spots on their schedule. And what we came down to is she had to do about, I think it was a 10 to 15 % increase in wages just to be sure that she had the resources to pay the people to work, because they were going to go somewhere else or they were going to take a full-time job. And obviously, fewer people means that she can't staff the positions that people are asking her staff. So I'm not seeing it. I'm just really struggling with this report beyond... How many positions are entry level that outside of, again, the what we've talked about with restaurant, retail, even in manufacturing, there's some entry level positions where you're basically bringing in parts or you're in training. I can understand where you might be making less there, but even in construction, a lot of the entry level positions, they're paying high wages.

[00:10:18.730] - Dan

I was meeting with client yesterday and they're in the glass business. In their case, their wages are going up and they're still having trouble attracting people and attracting talent in it on top of that. I don't know where it's coming from.

[00:10:35.400] - Rich

No, I don't see it. I still don't see it. I've been doing over the last few years, warehousing, health care, every meeting, it was always about the same thing. Where are we getting more talent? Where are we bringing more people in? Matrix set up to show how many people do we need to have on staff and every one of them short. So then the comments and the conversation becomes, well, the guy down the street just raised what he's offering to get people in the door. So again, unless this is some wonderful trickle down economic plan to start with the lowest people and move into everything else. I just don't see it.

[00:11:24.190] - Dan

Yeah. So last I checked, there was about four million, four and a half million jobs that still are sitting open. I don't have the details on what those jobs entail. Obviously, there's a big chunk of them that I would say are entry level, low skill positions. But anything requiring a license, a degree, years of training, they're still paying top dollar for it. I don't see that going down. I just page through the article here and pulled up, Denver must be having some unique situations going on, because in Denver, retail company, Appliance and Mattress Kingdom, they're paying around $18 an hour now. A year ago, they were paying $20 an hour. Okay, what caused that bump down? What really made you think that you could cut wages by two dollars an hour to hire people? And by the way, when I find out that somebody who took the job last year is making $20 or two dollars an hour more than me, what do you think is going to happen? Because all these guys think that this is all secret stuff. Well, this guy just outed it on a national magazine, a national publication.

[00:12:43.380] - Rich

With your name.

[00:12:44.820] - Dan

With your name. So yeah, if you're assuming that these guys don't read, you might be horribly wrong. I mean, it's just an interesting market that we're in right now. I don't see it changing anytime soon. I've warned all my clients. I think for the foreseeable decade or two, we are going to see a situation where we are going to be short staffed in almost every industry, especially skilled ones, especially professional ones, which has me leaning on them to maybe do some more automation. I don't know what you're telling your clients, but obviously there's an investment when you buy equipment or when you buy technology that eliminates a person or people, but the long-term benefits might be better.

[00:13:36.390] - Rich

Yeah, I think that that has been started. I'm one of those people who one of my tenants is technology before headcount.

[00:13:49.910] - Rich

Which.

[00:13:51.220] - Rich

Just means if there's something there that can do things better, faster, efficient, then you should go ahead and try that because the cost is completely different than putting a person. But that's over time.

[00:14:08.190] - Rich

The.

[00:14:12.620] - Rich

Interesting part becomes we are in an automation society, and as you keep telling me, which I totally agree with, you keep telling me that we have a shortage. So you're not going to be able to replace it. Even if you hired everybody for every open job, I think we're just still going to come up short. So automation does become a necessary, you can call it a necessary evil if you want to. I don't call it an evil, but you can call it a necessary evil because it really does have to happen because you're just not necessarily going to be able to accomplish what you want without using it.

[00:14:51.280] - Dan

Exactly. Well, the only other option I see, and this will probably raise some hairs on the back of people's necks right now is we have an immigration issue. I don't think we should let people walk across the border, but bottom line is we do have positions that people could fill that we should fill and we do have to find different ways to allow people to immigrate here. I know the process is extremely complicated and expensive. I've got friends and family who have significant others or spouses that are from other countries. I have two sisters that marry people out of the country, and I know the process that it took to get them in here. One, it was several years and thousands, if not tens of thousands in legal fees to get him a green card. Okay, can't we simplify that process? And on the other end, we can't just let anyone walk across the border and do whatever they want. At the same point, we've got people here who are capable of work, and they can't work because they're undocumented. So there's all sorts of issues here, and we're not here to get into the kerfuffle of all that.

[00:16:11.030] - Dan

I mean, you believe whatever you want to politics wise, but the problem is we are short of people, and we need to find ways to fill it. The other side of this is dealing with people who have professional skills: engineers, tech, accounting, for example, medical surgeons. It isn't always the easiest thing to get in this country to fill those jobs that are available for a number of reasons. It could be credentialing in your position. I know even with dentistry and doctors, you might have a degree in that from your home country, but it might not follow the same standards here in the US. So is there a standardization level that we need to get? And then how do we again allow those people to work here if there's opportunities here? So just from the staffing side of things, I think we are facing a challenge. I will go back to it is your responsibility as a business owner to create the best work environment possible with the resources you have to do so. That can be rather difficult. Rich, I know you deal with the financial part of it a lot, but salary and benefits are a big expense for a lot of companies, aren't they?

[00:17:26.350] - Rich

They're huge. In some cases, especially healthcare type or your biggest expenses on your P&L, even in warehousing distribution, it's the people in the rent. The salaries and then your facilities, those are the two things. So on businesses that have gone remote, you're really only dealing with the salaries.

[00:17:50.910] - Rich

Because.

[00:17:52.760] - Rich

You don't have that facility cost. So your biggest expense, nine times out of 10, becomes your people. So again, I agree with you 100%. How do you create the environment that allows you to pay them what is realistic and then keep them happy?

[00:18:10.050] - Dan

And that's the trick, keeping them happy. There's a lot to be learned about how generations change over time. We still have a mindset that I believe for some people is stuck in the 1950s. For other people, it might have upgraded to the 1980s, but either way, there's still a challenge that we're facing, and that's you're hired for a position and some owners expect you to just live in that position until the day you die. One, they're looking for loyalty. Two, they don't expect you to grow or develop in any way, shape or form other than get better at what you're doing. So whether it's widget building, whether it's accounting, whether it's office work, stay here, because if you stay here, then I don't have to hire or train anybody to replace you. Well, the reality is, especially with the generations coming up, they're looking for coaching, they're looking for development, they're looking for a career path, and if they can't get it where they're working at, they're going to find it somewhere else. They're going to pack up their bags and leave. I think the average length of time an employee stays at a company now is less than two years.

[00:19:21.310] - Dan

Rich, what's the average cost of hiring an employee? Do you have any idea?

[00:19:26.050] - Rich

I don't have specific statistics but depending on how you get them, your recruiting costs are up. Even if you do it in-house and do it yourself, there's ways to do it. It's just how fast you need it. So it becomes you pay more to do something faster.

[00:19:52.260] - Dan

Yeah, exactly.

[00:19:53.720] - Rich

So I don't really have a good statistic on that.

[00:19:58.900] - Dan

My experience is if you're using a recruiter, it's a minimum of 20% of that person's salary. Let's just for round numbers say, $100,000 salary is going to take you about 20 grand for a recruiter to replace that. Usually when you're using a recruiter, you're also doing, as you point out, you're doing your own work, because you're hoping that you'll hire before the recruiter does. You're going to probably spend, we'll say maybe 5-10 % of that person's salary between things like Indeed or ZIP, recruiters, stuff like that. Then there's the interviewing, then there's the more interviewing, then there's the negotiations, then there's the hiring, then there's the training. Now in my world, because I don't know how often you really deal with the numbers on this, but typically it's said that to get a person up to speed takes approximately a year, and you can factor in that from that point of hire till that year, you're going to invest about two and a half times salary to get that person up to speed. That may be hard dollars. That may be, I'll call it soft dollars. So it's intrinsic or it's just in the fact that they're not as productive as they will be once they're proficient at their job.

[00:21:24.790] - Dan

I think that's where probably about half of that goes, is when you hire somebody new, even if they have expertise, you come from an accounting background and you've worked with a number of different companies to know that one company does things differently than another company. It doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means how they do the process is different. Well, if you're an accountant going from one to the next, you've got to learn their processes and what to look for and this, that, the other thing. And there's a cost factor to that. There's also a time factor. Now, if you're keeping somebody for a year and a half to two years, basically, if it takes them a year to get trained, you've got them for roughly six months before they're on, they're already looking at their next opportunity. Again, because most people aren't given a path to growth, or they're not given the coaching that they're looking for. If you look at most surveys, I believe the number one reason why they leave is they felt that there was no opportunity for growth beyond their current position where they were at, or their manager wasn't giving them the time they needed to answer, address any questions or concerns, or give them feedback on how they were doing.

[00:22:33.230] - Dan

And we have a whole generation that is looking for that. I mean, how many of these kids are soccer kids? Did your kids do soccer? No, you've lucked out. Well, I lucked out too. I can't complain. But I see these these soccer parents that they took their kids everywhere. Their kids were used to being coached almost year round. And now they get in the real world. So they're no longer doing soccer anymore, at least most of them probably are. And they're looking for that coaching that's not happening. And that's where I'm looking at most business owners and executives saying, what are you doing to coach or develop your people? Well, we provide some level of training. Now, what are you doing? So you have so many people reporting to you. How are you supporting them? And they'll tell me they're too busy. That's the biggest excuse I get. Well, I'm doing this. I'm doing that. I don't have time to coach my people. That's not my job. No, that's your primary job, actually. All this other stuff you're doing, you probably should be delegating to the people you hired and teaching them how to do it.

[00:23:39.830] - Dan

And.

[00:23:41.710] - Dan

While that doesn't directly impact wages, well, actually it does indirectly impact wages, because now that person is leaving, they're looking for the next opportunity, which means the next company is going to pay them more, upwards of 10-20 %. I've heard at least 20% to get a person to move from their current job to a new job is usually what you need to do. Beyond that, they're getting a better title in most cases. If they were a supervisor here, they're a manager there, they're a director at the next place or given some executive VP titled beyond that. There's all this growth that's happening, but it's through transition and work. You're essentially hiring somebody to train them for the next position at this point.

[00:24:28.130] - Rich

Right. Yeah. I think the key point that I just heard from you is exactly the thing that keeps going through my head that it doesn't necessarily come down to the dollar number anymore. I think, well, I mean, it can't hurt.

[00:24:51.170] - Dan

It'll open the door, but it's not going to get me walked through.

[00:24:55.510] - Rich

But I do hear a lot more that where people get unhappy is more so now on non-monetary than previously. In the past, it was always the monetary. I could make more money somewhere else. I don't understand why I'm not making it here, blah, blah, blah. But when you really get into talking to people now, that teamwork thing is a big deal. Learning from the person that you're coming to work for, being able to say, I work for this guy and these are the things that we did and wow, look at these projects. And that builds out a resume that you can sell later on. We know you're eventually going to go somewhere, but we want to keep you as long as we can. So if you're still building that resume, then some people will hang out for longer because they're getting something other than the dollars. They're getting that buildup of what skills they can sell.

[00:25:58.960] - Dan

Yeah, what I see is the lowest turnover happens where the manager, the supervisor, director, whoever is engaged. They are coaching their people. They understand the value of the talent they're hiring, and they're spending time with them. Bottom line is they're spending time with them, because that's what these people crave. The other side of it is work life balance. And while I'm not a big believer in that, it's a term that's often thrown around. And while we look to crave some, we don't want to work all the time, we also shouldn't want to play all the time. We've got to find some happy medium in the middle. But at the same point, there's different times of year where you might have to work more. There's other times of year where you can get away with maybe working less. And we need to look at how we coach our staff on working through those differences. So there's going to be times where you might have to put off a party, or maybe you don't go out after work because there's this thing to do. But there should also be other times that offset or compensate for that.

[00:27:06.280] - Dan

So maybe in summer months, you're slower. Now there's more free time where maybe you leave in early afternoon because come fall during your peak times, you're going to have to put in extra hours. And in all fairness to employees, I think we also need to coach them on that as well, because they shouldn't just be able to expect that they can go wherever they want for whatever reason they want. That might be hard for some people to understand.

[00:27:34.750] - Rich

Yeah, I think setting expectations is enormous, especially if we're dealing with this article and the pricing. They're talking about people that are coming in from, say, school. They're entry level people. That expectations really has to be ingrained in that initial set of conversations, whether it takes six months to get it through or what. I've worked with... I've worked with a lot of different people who've worked for me over time, and nine times out of 10 to use that work-life-balance label. I always tell people, Look, your kid's got something going on. You better be there. I'm not going to be happy if you don't see something that's going on with one of your kids. And I've had that conversation with a number of people and said, I don't need you to come and tell me that you're going to do something. I need you to go do it. And then as long as your work is getting done, whether that's later on that night or whether it's before you leave or whether it's the next morning, somewhere along the line, you're going to give me back the hours that we can go back to that old school mentality of, Well, you take that hour, you got to give me an hour back over here.

[00:28:48.480] - Rich

I don't necessarily sit there and say, There's a tally card and you have to let me know how I've made out by you going to see your kids play. But you need to go see your kids play because they're not going to be in it again. From a personal standpoint, I'd be unhappy if you didn't go do that because you're doing a spreadsheet for me.

[00:29:11.200] - Dan

Right.

[00:29:12.180] - Rich

And communication becomes a big deal there.

[00:29:16.440] - Dan

Yeah. I think part of that that you alluded to is expectations, clear expectations, because do your employees know what is expected of them and what their output should be? I don't see a lot of that. I see a lot of assumptions, but I don't see clear expectations. So the employee thinks, well, I'm going to this birthday party for my daughter or my son, and I'm not going to have to worry about anything after that. Well, what if you have a project that's due at the end of the week and it needs to get done? Go to the birthday party, but then figure out how to get that project complete on a timeline or seek help so that we make sure we meet our deadlines. That's not what I'm seeing managers do. That's also where their biggest frustration comes in because they haven't established those, and that's why they're running into the issues there are.

[00:30:11.340] - Rich

I think that's also one of the things that I run into when someone brings me in because they've lost a CFO, a controller, they need somebody to help just look and see if everything is running smoothly. A lot of times I come in and it's not. It really comes down, I think, to that level of the leader had not told the staff this is what's expected. That leader left and the wheel stopped turning or the people went in different directions. They actually scattered because they all thought they knew it was best, but it was all separate instruction. So your first task is, Well, I got to look at the numbers. And then your second task is, I got to figure out where everybody is and reel them back in and get them back into what I call the same boat, get in the same boat and row in the same direction, now you're a formidable contender.

[00:31:10.140] - Dan

Or what I see is you've got the rudderless ship because the person who had left was a control freak and they were the oracle. They directed and dictated everything. So you had your minions working below you that were tasked with certain jobs to do, but were never told why needed to do that job or given a timeline because ultimately it fell back on that leader. Well, in your situation, the example you gave, that person walks out the door. Now you have people sitting at their desk wondering, Well, what should I do next? And as you point out, they might go on their own path or they might just sit there and wallow in their indecision because they're not clear as to what they're supposed to be doing in the first place.

[00:31:55.240] - Rich

I walked into one, and I always call it the story of Joe. Because when you walked in, you would ask somebody to do something and say, Well, I got to check with Joe. I have to check with Joe. Joe was the CEO. There was 15 people in the whole company. It was an upstart. There were 15 people there. Every time I asked somebody to do something, I said, Well, I got to check with Joe. I said, Do you have a problem? They said, What's that? I said, Joe is on a six-month trip to Australia.

[00:32:24.200] - Dan

Joe ain't answering his questions. Joe is not.

[00:32:26.360] - Rich

Answering it. He's 12 hours different easily on the time zone chart. We got to figure out how to do some of this without Joe.

[00:32:35.760] - Dan

Which means you're going to have to take a risk to make a choice and we'll deal with the outcomes of that choice later on.

[00:32:41.930] - Dan

Hopefully you chose wisely.

[00:32:46.270] - Rich

Yeah, I think they did. But it was the shocker that Joe is not here to tell you what to do. So what are we going to do as a plan B?

[00:32:57.170] - Dan

Yeah. And again, the more you know and the more you're able to operate on your own, the higher your wages are going to be. And of course, there's fewer and fewer people of capable of doing that. But you still see this momentum push where you have your top talent that are getting paid top dollar, and you still don't want the talent beneath that to be too far off. Otherwise, if you got too big of a separation, you're going to end up seeing them walk out the door. In business, everyone's trying to make things cheaper. Well, that's a race to the bottom. There's a point where you can make things cheap, but then there's going to be somebody else that comes along this bigger and has more resources and they'll make it a little bit cheaper and a little bit cheaper. Then most companies can't compete off that. I think we see some of that happening in Amazon right now. The other side of the coin is there's a limit to what you can pay people. You can't just keep upping wages. Now some companies, again, they've got more resources, they can pay more money. But the vast majority of companies don't have that luxury.

[00:34:01.590] - Dan

At some point, you will hit a wall and you will be talking with your CFO saying, You can't afford to pay people these salaries unless we do something as far as raising prices and whatnot. Of course, most companies don't want to jack their rates up too much out of fear that then their clients are going to walk. There's a lot going on here. Of course, each company is in an individual situation and they need to look at what they're doing. But based on this article, Rich, what's been your takeaway from all this?

[00:34:31.670] - Rich

I think that there will be a point in time where the market might settle a bit. I personally think that having seen in other industries, having seen that their prices are up, I have a decent feeling that they're not going to see a big drop that everybody's looking for, which is why these articles are looking to be the first to report that salaries are coming down. But I don't think they are. I think we're in an inflationary society now. I think these increased numbers are there for a while. I don't necessarily see. There's got to be some other... I have to see some other economic factor that's going to push it in a different direction. But I think my takeaway is this is what we're here to deal with. I think on the go forward, we really have to start thinking about the fact that this is where it's going to be. My second piece to that is look into the automation and see if you can go along with the trend.

[00:35:37.040] - Dan

Yeah, I have a similar takeaway to you. First takeaway is that I think Wall Street Journal had to sell some papers, and this was a good way to do it because there's a lot of owners out there who are looking for some relief on the payment front. But I think my biggest takeaway, again, is we're not going to see any changes anytime soon. You really are going to have to change how your leaders work. If you want to keep your people and you want to quit hiring as much, you're always going to have some turnover, but it boils back down to you've got to develop the people you have. You have to keep your best talent happy. Trust me, they're not happy when they see lower talent getting paid more and usually getting more attention than what they're doing and they're doing all the work. You really have to look at how you're handling that. In the end, I don't see much as far as salary is changing at all. I think we're at a new level or a new plateau. It'll probably settle down a little bit, but that's all depends on where inflation is at and how quickly people are again rotating through new positions by taking that new opportunity.

[00:36:46.100] - Dan

Bottom line is you have to train, you have to coach, you have to develop if you want to keep your staff and manage your labor costs at all. I think there's a lot of companies out there that could use our help bridge. How would they get a hold of you if they need to look at their finances and figure out why they're bleeding cash in the payroll department?

[00:37:05.610] - Rich

I would reach out to me at rveltre@veltregroup.com. That's the best way to get me.

[00:37:11.280] - Dan

And if you need help trying to figure out how to keep your staff happy, give me a call. Dan Paulson. I am at DanPaulsonlet'sgo.com. You can just fill out a form there and set up an appointment, and we can definitely talk about it. This has been Books & The Biz. You can find us at booksnbiz.com, B-O-O-K-S, the letter N, B-I-Z. Com, that's where the podcasts are held. You can also find us on YouTube. We ask that you subscribe in both cases and also like and hit the notification button. All that helps us keep doing this for you. And other than that, I think we got to go off and help some people find employees, Rich. I think that's our next job here.

[00:37:55.630] - Rich

Sounds like a plan.

[00:37:57.420] - Dan

All right. You have a great time and we will chat with you again next week.

[00:38:02.040] - Rich

All right. Take care. Bye.

WSJ article: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/the-worker-bidding-war-is-over-companies-are-cutting-pay-for-new-hires-1cab0fe