No Raise, No Promotion: 1 in 4 White-Collar Workers Are Stalling Out [View all]
No promotion. No notable raises. Not yet 40. You arent alone.
Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers before their so-called peak earning years, going at least five years without a real boost in pay or position.
Thats the central finding of a new study tracking the careers of 1.3 million midcareer professionals across a range of industries since 2000. It suggests that even in an economy with high employment, many workers run into an invisible barrier to upward mobility just when their careers are supposed to gain momentum.
Midcareer stalls often start as early-career slumps and can ripple across a lifetime of earnings, the analysis found. That makes those first working years after college especially critical for gaining the experience and skills that propel a career forward.
When youre talking about a quarter of the workforce, youre not talking about a niche problem, said Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, which conducted the study with New York Universitys School of Professional Studies.
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