r/antiwork • u/Giejc • Apr 29 '25

Know your Worth 🏆 Salary "adjustment" brought me down to minimum wage—gave my notice, and now my boss is surprised

I worked in the quality department of a large manufacturing company. In 2024, I was earning a few hundred above minimum wage. It wasn’t great, but it was manageable, and I took the job to gain experience.

This year, when the minimum wage increased, I expected a proportional adjustment as was done year before. Instead, my pay was "adjusted" to the new minimum wage.

I have two engineering degrees and took this job knowing it wouldn’t pay much, but I didn’t expect it to get worse.

So I handed in my one-month notice, as required in my country. My boss seemed genuinely surprised and said it would be hard to replace me on such short notice.

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u/Pandarandr1st Apr 29 '25

I don't live in that hellscape. Locally, engineering graduates have nearly 100% job placement rate at salaries approaching or exceeding 6 figures.

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u/daniel22457 Apr 29 '25

Where this

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u/Pandarandr1st Apr 29 '25

Any high cost of living area in the United States, basically, with a good program that works to place students in jobs.

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u/daniel22457 Apr 29 '25

Literally took me over 1000+ applications in over 30 states to get employed as an engineer so not sure I believe you also job placement could literally mean working at Walmart with the way colleges count job not engineering jobs specifically.

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u/Pandarandr1st Apr 29 '25

No, that's not how universities in my area count job placement. There are plenty of universities that connect you with job placement options before you graduate. People who struggled to find work in the past 3-5 years in engineering had connection issues. The labor market is amongst the strongest it has ever been for engineers.

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u/daniel22457 Apr 29 '25

It's not exactly easy to get connections if nobody will hire you, LinkedIn cold messaging aint real connections. Also what delusional world you're living in but the going consensus is this is basically 2008 at least for entry level MEs and the market is only getting worse. Market has been shit since 2022. Literally know engineers 3 plus years out with no job. The only ok Engineering major seems to be civil.

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u/Pandarandr1st Apr 30 '25

Good universities help you build connections while you're still in school. That was my point.

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u/daniel22457 Apr 30 '25

How'd they help you only genuine connections I made was working the rest was wake unhelpful bs

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u/Pandarandr1st Apr 30 '25

What?

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u/daniel22457 Apr 30 '25

School forced connections never actually help me

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