Strange Salary Emails At JPL
Keith’s note: From [email protected]: “I received this today at JPL. I have no idea who else did. “Management” is not aware of what is going on here.”
“From: Office Of The Director ([email protected])
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2022 4:37 PM
Subject: Market Pay Adjustment
1x | Office of the Director
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
April 21, 2022
To: Select JPL employees
From: Interim Director Larry James
Subject: Market Pay Adjustment
Many of us join JPL because we feel a calling to this work, and passionately believe in the greater purpose of our missions. We also belong to an economic environment affected by fluctuations in workforce needs and changing market conditions. As a part of the larger Caltech institution, we monitor forces impacting our talent, and strive to consistently take actions to remain an employer of choice.
Market conditions are changing and warrant us looking at our competitive position mid-year. As a result, you will be receiving a base salary market adjustment of 3%, effective April 25, 2022. This increase will be reflected on your May 13, 2022 paycheck and is in addition to any future pay changes resulting from other HR actions, like Annual Salary Review (ASR) discussions.
The accomplishments we have achieved during the past few years, under the most challenging circumstances, have been remarkable. We want to acknowledge and respond to the rapid commercial growth in our sector, and how that has impacted the pool of available talent, as well as the demands on that talent.
Everyone at JPL is contributing to making great discoveries and leaving a legacy, and we are grateful to have incredible people like you. Together, we will continue doing innovative, one-of-a-kind, amazing work.
If you have any questions about this market adjustment, please contact your Human Resources Business Partner (HRBP).”
This is s government contracting issue. When a contractors labor rate is N but pays an employee less than 40% of N (and keeps the $ as profit ) the government objects. It simpler and more profitable for them to raise the pay of an employee than accept lower labor rates. I have seen people get 15% rate increases because the company was shorting them. This practice happens more to new engineers/etc or people unemployed. Whatever you’re getting payed multiply that by 2.2 and you can figure out the labor rate (unless you’re getting cheated.)
The labor multiplier varies quite a bit across aerospace. It’s not uncommon for a given company to have multipliers that vary across divisions. The multiplier at a strictly services company will be low because they don’t have facilities and IRAD to fund. So, a contract like JPL’s will have a low multiplier, but a contract with a satellite manufacturer will be higher – they have labs, test chambers, etc that have to be kept running no matter the demand for their services. So the multiplier there will be much higher due to higher overhead.
JPL has lots of facilities such as labs and test chambers and they do have a very healthy internal research and development budget. And their cost multiplier is very high as a result.
Sounds like it’s being driven by Caltech. Universities can find themselves drifting downward in what they pay their staff, to the point where people start to leave. I imagine that Caltech decided to implement a broad raise to help hold on to staff and, since JPL is managed by them, that choice affects staff at JPL, too.
I’ll take it! (I received the same email).
It is unclear who “Select JPL Employees” is. Who received this email? Everyone at JPL? A subset?
At a conference last week NASA HR showed how, while once NASA was able to attract the best and brightest STEM candidates, now many of the candidates look at alternative organizations and companies where they see progress is more assured. In some places within NASA the STEM personnel work for decades and the rocket never takes off; or by the time it takes off, the capabilities have been surpassed in the private sector or in the military and their rocket’s purpose is now defunct. NASA is finally acknowledging this.
Problem is the money is not the main issue. The workers have never been more capable. But if leadership has no vision or they lead in the wrong direction, or they delay progress because of bureaucracy, then they are not fixing anything. The capable STEM workers just wind up sitting on their duffs or led in a negative direction.
JPL is in a critical and vulnerable situation. They have led NASA in planetary exploration. Some of their competitors on the West Coast stand ready to take in those disillusioned STEM candidates at substantially higher salaries. Other NASA locations and programs perhaps are not quite so critically positioned; human space flight and rocketry are decades behind. Maybe it is too late for them. So maybe JPL serves as a trial.
Very interesting. Do you have details on the conference and session? I’d like to learn more if possible about the presentation from HR.
NASA and Government contracting jobs have fallen well below that of private Industry rates. This 3% adjustment will help, but will hardly change things. SpaceX for example easily offers 150% and higher that of comparable wages than JPL as it stands. Some Silicon Valley software jobs pay 7 figures for as little as 5 year of experience. It’s an easy decision to make versus being devalued by some Civil Servant or contract manager that has nothing to show for their entire career.
JPL is likely the only outlier that has a chance to compete given it’s track record of excellence, but it’s going to need to be higher than 3%. For the rest of the NASA centers, that ship has sailed. I would not be oppossed to shutting them down and diverting the funds to help JPL compete.
7 figures? Do you mean 6 figures?
I don’t know – in Silicon Valley software business, 6 figures with “as little as” 5 years experience would not be noteworthy at all. It’d be pretty low.
There are software engineering jobs at the big tech companies that offer $300k – $600k in total compensation, including RSUs before the Russia-Ukraine war tanked the economy making that stock worth a lot less.
Granted that is an insane amount of money. But >$1MM in total compensation is unheard of in engineering, unless you are VP of something higher.
It would appear that this went to everyone who is a) an employee except: People very high on the food chain. b) students/interns