There’s an extra bi-weekly payday in 2009

For companies that pay salaries every two weeks, there is one year in each decade in which 27 payrolls occur rather than the usual and logical 26. For those in a budget crunch with bi-weekly payrolls, unfortunately and ironically, this decade the year is 2009. Budgets for those organizations should show a 3.85 percent increase in payroll expenditures.

This bucks the trend toward belt-tightening. According to the Economic Research Institute, by late 2008, its Salary Planning Increase Survey “suddenly began to look like a staff planning survey. Almost all input from private-sector participants reflected a trend toward becoming ‘lean and mean’ with significant downsizing.”

Reduced headcounts, eliminated bonuses and perquisites, reduced budgets with workforce reductions, and frozen hiring, training and travel were also reported. “Layoffs of historic proportions have occurred in the last three months, with downsizing being, by far, the leading cost control technique,” ERI said in its quarterly newsletter.