The Great Resignation's giant pay gap between job switchers, loyal workers

But if you've been at your company for more than a year, here's something your manager doesn't want you to know: You're probably underpaid.Over the past year, the red-hot job market has forced employers to dole out huge paychecks to lure new candidates — and that's created a deep divide between the rookies and the veterans at companies across the US. In recessions, job stayers fare better than job switchers, reflecting the fact that the job switching during bad times is often involuntary — people are laid off and have no choice but to take lower-paying roles. LaborIQ keeps track of median pay for about 20,000 job titles and then calculates what companies need to offer to recruit new hires in today's job market, adjusted for each particular job and location. Now, inflation is turning even more job stayers into job switchers, as rising prices have forced people to seek the pay bump that comes with a new position.Employers know they've got a problem. "We want to make sure that the offers we're making externally in the market and our current employees match up." As a result of the audit, employees received pay bumps of 3% to 20% — "substantially" bigger than in previous years, Clarke said. The best employees were rewarded for their loyalty, not penalized for sticking around.Now, spurred by the Great Resignation, a growing number of companies are being forced to take the same approach, conducting frequent pay audits to ensure the salaries of existing workers keep up with the market. After all, if a company automatically pays its valued employees what the market demands, then talented staffers have no financial incentive to go looking for a new job.