I’m showing that most of the salaries are up compared to last year. The exception seems to be that Mid-Senior Management positions are a little lower than last year.
That being said, that exception is a REALLY big deal if you are a design professional in the Mid-Senior Management part of your career.
Love seeing all this information laid out! Super helpful to see where the industry is going
I’m especially interested to see the WFH stats. I follow a fashion recruiting Instagram page that has constantly been pushing the “WFH isnt the norm anymore” narrative and really been pushing applicants to just accept the 5 day in-office positions. I actually unfollowed them because of it because I found it really condescending and frankly from my experience, untrue!! Glad to see the stats reflect that flex work and WFH is still fairly common for the industry.
I would love to see info in the future on the percentage of people who have switched jobs in the last 12 months, or perhaps stats on how long people have been at their position, especially broken down by career level. I feel like this industry has huge turnover.
From previous surveys, the average stay at a fashion company is 3 years but 2.5 years in NY Metro.
With respect to WFH, we’ve seen companies offshore jobs to India, China and the Philippines once they realized the positions could be done fully-remote.
The Workshop LA (theworkshop_la) consistently posts that hybrid/remote work is dead, and it’s back in the office full time again- no exceptions.
Every time I’ve talked/emailed with them, they say that too, that I shouldn’t even ask for hybrid work because “it’s over”. Even though there are some companies that are still hybrid (I’m at one of them!).
We post a lot of hybrid positions but yes, for the most part, remote and hybrid are all but dead. Eventually, it will be Summer Hours and that’s it.
I have a good friend who is the CEO of a big Home Owners Association management company and during the pandemic, he took a look at every job that could be done remotely and started sourcing out a lot of those positions to India and the Philippines. I’ve got a feeling that a lot of US fashion companies did the same thing.
In 2021 The Workshop recruiter laughed at me over the phone when I told her I was looking for something that at least had flex time/hybrid. Unfortunately in my experience, it’s been true–it’s just not available in LA. My last two positions were advertised as hybrid (in-office 2 or 3 days a week) however at the first one, my fit days just happened to be every day, M-F. Others had 2 fit days per week and could WFH otherwise, but I guess because I had two fit models who fit different days, I got to be in-office the whole week. Lucky me.
My current job was originally in-office 2 days a week, now it’s 3, however the team I’m on LOVES to work in-office and hang out/gossip, so they make it absolute hell to WFH at all. Impromptu fittings that I need to be in just happen to occur if I go home for even an afternoon with my laptop. I had to drive into the office to measure one sample that needed a spec “ASAP” because no one wanted to pitch in and help out since I dared to WFH on a day that our company allowed it.
So yes, unfortunately I agree, WFH is dead. I could do a lot of my job at home but surprisingly it’s my teammates who make it impossible, not the company this time.