'50% salary decrease': New job cuts worker's pay by $30k shortly after recruiting them

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Mar 2, 2023 12:00 PM EST

Trick a worker into quitting their job and joining your organization, then they're well and truly trapped when you cut their pay by 50%… Talk about a cunning trap. That's exactly what this worker shared experiencing in a post shared to Reddit's r/antiwork subreddit community.

In a post titled '50% salary decrease…', they discussed the situation. "My new job just cut my salary by $30k, only a couple months into the job." the post begins, "I was making $65k, and now I'm making $35k LOL. They tried to gaslight me into thinking I wasn't experienced enough for the role, but that's BS because I was making $60k in a comparable role before taking on this job."

That sounds like a pretty rough situation, especially to go from earning $60k at the previous job to thinking you'll be earning $65k in the foreseeable future only to have the rug pulled out from under you and go to earning half your previous wage. This has to be illegal somehow; this employer has stolen this guy's entire life. Absolutely this guy shouldn't have signed the new contract, but what else would you do in that situation? The only thing he can really do is go crawling back to his old employer… This is why you don't burn bridges, folks.

If that wasn't an option, it's safe to say that you probably still wouldn't stay at that job for any longer than you had to. Still, the job application and interview process can take a painful amount of time and energy—especially when you're working a full-time job.

Readers let their thoughts be known in the comments, encouraging the worker to strike back at the employer by quitting with no notice as soon as they had found another job—others had even more out-the-gate suggestions.

Keep scrolling to see the screenshots of the original post. For more,