Companies almost never offer employees pay cuts in the lead-up to layoffs, despite a willingness of workers to accept even deep reductions in wages to avoid losing their jobs, a new study finds.
The National Bureau of Economic Research survey of recently laid-off workers found that 60% would accept a pay cut of 5% to keep their jobs. Meanwhile, more than half would take a pay cut of 10% and nearly a third would accept a pay cut of 25% if it meant keeping their job, illustrating the lengths to which workers would go to avoid being unemployed.
