A survey from Challenger, Gray & Christmas spoke to 252 companies and found that 81% had plans to freeze holiday bonuses at a value set last year.In January, Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that 23% of companies said they would offer bonuses based on the performance of the company, which appears to have changed by the end of this year.
Andy Challenger, senior vice president at Challenger, Gray and Christmas, said earlier this year, “We typically tend to see bonuses go up at times when the labor market is really tight."In the Thursday report, he said, “We’re clearly seeing some softening in the labor market.” “Companies are more concerned about an economic recession or a slowdown coming in the next quarter or so, and you’re starting to see that show up in some of these indicators,” he said in the Thursday report obtained by CNN.“We’ve been in the tightest labor market in modern American history ... the lowest level of layoffs, the highest wage increases, the highest number of job openings, the highest number of jobs quit,” Challenger said.
“As things soften, inevitably, layoffs are going to increase, bonuses are going to go down, wages will stop rising at quite the same pace. And, that’s if we have a nice, soft landing,” he said.