Recent data from compensation platform Pave reveals a striking paradox in today’s labor market: while hiring for many positions has cooled dramatically, the pay premium for new talent remains robust. By the end of 2023, content marketers accounted for just 0.8% of all new hires, but that share fell to under 0.3% by mid‑2025 – a two‑thirds drop in just two and a half years. Yet firms still offer new content marketers roughly 21% higher salaries than those already in the role.
Premiums Extend Beyond Content Marketing
The trend is not isolated. HR generalists, identified by Pave as the third “coldest” job in its Hot Jobs Index, still see a 10.3% salary premium for senior talent. Across the broader job landscape, the average baseline salary increase for a new hire sits at about 5.4% compared with existing employees. That uplift largely stems from turnover – when workers leave, companies must raise offers to attract replacements.
Why New Hires Often Earn More
Economists explain this by noting that a worker hired four years ago was priced to the market of that time and has likely received only modest annual raises since. In contrast, a candidate hired this month is priced to today’s higher market rates. Pave’s analysis plotted every job family on two axes – hiring share change and new‑hire cost relative to incumbents – and found a tight vertical column at the center. Almost every job family sits above the 100% line, meaning new hires consistently cost more than incumbents regardless of hiring direction.
Demand Shifts Don’t Move the Pay Needle
Whether a function is expanding or contracting, the premium remains. Customer service, the most cooled job family in the dataset, is the only area where new hires fall below parity. Customer success, also cooling, still commands nearly a 10% premium. Software engineering, a high‑growth field, sees new hires priced at a smaller premium than customer success, yet still above incumbents.
Demographic Shifts in Entry‑Level Talent
Hiring volume isn’t the sole variable; level matters too. Entry‑level workers aged 21‑25 dropped from 14.9% of the public‑company workforce in early 2023 to roughly 6.5% by mid‑2025. This reduction reflects broader demographic trends and the tightening of entry‑level opportunities.
Sticky Wages Amid Economic Uncertainty
Across all companies in the study, total compensation trends upward almost without exception. Economists label this phenomenon “downward nominal wage rigidity” – wages are reluctant to fall even when demand cools. During the recent recession, economist Truman Bewley asked employers why they chose layoffs over pay cuts; morale emerged as the dominant answer. Cutting wages can poison workplace morale, so most firms opt to keep pay stable or increase it.
Implications for Workers and Employers
The data suggests that a cooling job market does not translate into cheaper talent. Employers continue to pay a premium to attract experienced workers, and employees who stay tend to see their pay rise or at least hold steady. For workers seeking new opportunities, the market still rewards movement; changing roles often yields a salary boost compared with staying put.
Looking Ahead
Even as AI disruption and broader economic turbulence loom, the upward pressure on wages appears likely to persist. Pay acts as a lagging indicator – it jumps when the market heats up and resists falling when it cools. Consequently, job seekers and employers alike should recognize that while the number of openings may shrink, the price of qualified talent remains elevated.
Original reporting: KEYT (Ventura/Santa Barbara) — read the source article.
