Short rant.

My company isn't doing well because of the pandemic. I and several of my well deserving colleagues have not only been put on hold for promotions we were promised, but we will be taking a pay cut department wide.

THEN we get introduced to not one, but TWO new contractors we will now be working with. Additions to my department. Because we have "headcount".

I'm absolutely livid. Someone please explain how we have the money to pay for contractors (senior level) yet we don't have the money to promote or properly pay our existing folk.?? My department is extremely domain knowledge heavy, so I see little to no value in ADDING outside folks, especially when projects are getting cut.

RUN. Run as long as they still pay you. Or at least start looking for alternatives until this bubble will burst

Yeah, that's a company whose upper management has been swindled by contracting companies promising they can just swoop in and solve the issues, as long as the funds are all diverted to them.

The pandemic may have been a reasonable excuse to put promotions on hold a few months ago, but no longer. Life moves on, there's plenty of work out there - and if your current employer can't afford to pay you fairly, find another one that will.

I'm in the same boat :/

Go freelance and tell them you will still work with them (not for them) for a raise.
If they refuse, you have the perfect counter argument

Same here, I'm supposed to have a yearly review next week but judging by my other coworkers I doubt that I'm getting a promotion :/
Hell, they even promoted 2 devs to "senior" positions but no pay rise

I'm in a similar position (at least they arren't cutting pays).

But since the begin of the pandemic we got 4.5 new clients (we had 5, the .5 is a client who decided to expand to another country).
But our team didn't get bigger.

The CEO closed hiring and sub-contracted a company to help us.
But that company can't: talk with clients; can't develop, only analyse issues and propose solutions; don't do on-call nights (we do support 24/7, where each week we have a guy in each speciality); and we can only give them issues one time a week.

So, we are working sometimes 12 hours, without getting paid more.

Our company had pride to offer formations, but since the pandemic we have almost no formations.

Also I really feel that we don't have any knowledge "in-house" in some specialities we have support.

Are the contractors indians? Contractors are cheap, no benefits and project based usually by 3, 6 or 12 months. You should worry.

@skylord promotion with no salary raise nice I like that. Guess he's a slasher too 😁

@pmso working 12 hours without getting paid more? Welcome to the overtime without pay my friend. First time?

Note that contractors are not "fixed cost" so may be easier to justify to the board.

That said, I agree: find a new place if possible