Yeah, this happened to me about a month ago. Then about 3 weeks ago, our sick leave also got cut. I feel your pain, brotha...
This is my concern. I am not sure if all the firms need to cut pay or some are just riding the bandwagon and taking advantage. Certainly, it is better to make a little less than losing out on pay and benefits altogether. Eventually, at the end of the 2 year period the change in salary will be in the negative (I am in a similar boat) which under normal conditions would have been X% positive. So it is a double loss. Let's be optimistic and say that the pay is broguth back to the pre-cut time, still there is a loss as there was no raise in the salary and then from that point on your current salary for the purposes of any future incremenets will become what you were making before the reduction.
No kidding! I went through a year of 10% pay cut (but with one extra day off every two weeks), and let me tell you, it really does make a difference!
I'm not sure what the civil/structural outlook is right now in nuclear. Mechanical and electrical engineers are still in short supply. Our fossil work is falling off some right now but the nuke work is still going pretty strong.
I just got an email from a power plant (fossil) shift supervisor that we regulate telling me he was being laid off and actively seeking work. Last month I got an email saying the same thing from the regulatory rep from the same company. I thought these guys were immune. Things have to be tough when you're trying to network with your regulators.
We're still going fairly strong here, but we've always been understaffed and now it seems everyone wants to leave this state. . .
