U.S. companies will spend less on pay raises and performance awards in 2010 than they originally expected, an indication of lingering concerns about the economy’s stability. A nationwide survey by Hewitt Associates consultants shows that companies are more optimistic about 2011, with most expecting to bump up salary increases and variable pay.
Hewitt’s survey of more than 1,450 large companies shows that base pay for salaried workers rose 2.4 percent in 2010. The raises were smaller than the 2.7 percent that employers had projected in August 2009, but higher than the record-low pay raises workers saw in 2009 (1.8 percent).
Spending on performance-based awards was also lower than expected in 2010, attributable mostly to lackluster company performance. Spending on variable pay as a percentage of payroll for exempt workers dropped to 11.3 percent, down from a record high of 12 percent in 2009.
Education is among the industries with the lowest projected pay increases for 2011 (2.3 percent). The industries with the highest projected salary increases are accounting, consulting, and law (3.3 percent) and energy, aerospace, pharmaceuticals, construction/engineering, and real estate (3.2 percent).
—“2010 Salary Increases, Variable Pay Awards Lower than Expected,” by Stephen Miller, Society for Human Resource Management Web Site, Sept. 1, 2010.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced the launch of a national teacher recruitment campaign during a live television broadcast that was part of the NBC Education Nation summit in New York. The campaign features a new Web Site 
dedicated to providing information and resources for students and prospective teachers, including a new interactive “pathway to teaching” tool that will help people with an interest in education become a teacher.
“With more than a million teachers expected to retire in the coming years, we have a historic opportunity to transform public education in America by calling on a new generation to join those already in the classroom,” said Duncan.
The campaign’s goals include the following:
The Education Department will work with Facebook to launch an interactive application on the TEACH Facebook page that will connect current teachers with young people. The application will allow anyone with questions about teaching to engage directly with an experienced teacher.
The Texas Teacher Retirement System (TRS) Board is considering rule changes that could affect post-retirement employment and establishment of service credit with the goal of standardizing to allow uniform benefits administration and make the rules clear to TRS members.
First, TRS is considering recommending legislative changes to the rules that govern post-retirement employment. Separate exceptions that allow teachers, substitutes, bus drivers, nursing school faculty, principals, and assistant principals to return to employment following retirement make the law difficult to administer.
The board will move forward with a plan to allow all retirees to work as much as half-time without forfeiting any annuity or return to work full time after sitting out for at least 12 months without loss of annuity. The existing surcharges would continue to apply to retirees hired by school districts for TRS-covered positions.
The board intends to simplify the rules regarding service credits by making 90 days the standard for all positions to earn a year of service. A person in the final year of his or her employment would be granted an exception to allow him or her to retire after the fall semester and receive service credit for that year.
Both of the above proposals must first be approved by the TRS board and then included in a bill filed on the agency’s behalf in the next legislative session. Both were posted for public comment.
