Bumped Execs Land On Feet, Get Higher Pay

For the first time in three years, more than half of all executives who lost their jobs in downsizings are getting bigger salaries in their new positions than in the jobs they left behind.

So says outplacement agency Drake Beam Morin in its 1996 Career Transition Study.

But the jump isn’t necessarily true for people of all ages. More than half of men over the age of 50 and women over 40 tended to take a pay cut when they moved on to a new job.

Survey participants included 525 men and women who were terminated in downsizings and used out-placement services to find new jobs. Other survey findings: Men between 56 and 60 and women between 51 and 55 have substantially shorter job-search times than their younger counterparts.

It took men ages 56 to 60 an average of 8.7 months to find a new job, compared with 12.2 months for men 51 to 55. Women 51 to 55 took 7.4 months, compared with women 46 to 50, who averaged 8.6 months.