Glossary · Compensation

Salary Compression

When new hires are paid close to or more than tenured staff.

Definition

Salary compression occurs when rising market rates push new-hire salaries near or above the pay of long-tenured employees in the same role, creating retention risk.

How SalaryScopePro uses this term

We surface salary compression across salary results, occupation pages, city pages, and Premium Reports — with consistent definitions and methodology. See methodology and data sources for how the underlying numbers are computed.