How people in their twenties can boost their salaries

The secret to earning more in your twenties is switching jobs more often. Hate your job with a fiery passion? You'll know if you do; the signs are there. Well, moving on to pastures new is healthy not only for your well-being but for your bank balance too. According to newly published analysis from the UK's Resolution Foundation, workers in the 18-29 age bracket who move jobs regularly earn more than those who stay put. Between 2007 and 2014, the 'job-stayers' in the above bracket would have seen a 4.4 percent median pay increase, while the 'job-switchers' were looking at a comparatively massive 11.8 percent in the same time slot. In an economically strong society, job mobility should be relatively easy, and pay jumps therefore more common. But as this chart from RF demonstrates, the 2008 recession made it much harder to move between jobs and pay suffered for it. [caption id="attachment_54028" align="alignnone" width="704"] Credit: Resolution Foundation[/caption] The report explained that if young people were able to change jobs more frequently then hourly pay would be around 30p higher, and warned that this needs to happen to avoid long-term damage to earnings.

Laura Gardiner, Senior Policy Analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said:

“Frequent job moves are the main route to the rapid pay increases young people should experience as they begin their working lives. So it is a real concern that job switching slowed down for all groups, and particularly for young people, even before the recession hit.

“Unpicking the reasons why young people are staying put in their jobs for longer is crucial to understanding whether job switching can return to its previous level, or whether we are seeing a ‘new normal’ of fewer job moves and subsequent slower pay growth for generations to come.

“Unless we want to see a long-term scarring effect on the wages of future generations, Millennials must regain confidence and increase the frequency with which they move jobs, and firms must be more willing to take them on.”

Better get cleaning up that desk. DISCLAIMER: do not dramatically quit your job in the above fashion unless you have another one lined up. Bad idea.