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When it comes to wage protests, do hourly job seekers really care?

Job seekers ages 45-54 years old had the strongest opinion of the impact of wage protests.

October 7, 2014 by Jason Hamilton — VP of Marketing, Snagajob

More and more we’re seeing news around the protests happening in the world demanding higher wages for hourly workers. As the largest network of hourly job seekers, Snagajob keeps up with what today’s job seekers are looking for and feels a sincere connection when it comes to events that impact them. So we decided to get their two cents.

We polled job seekers on Snagajob.com asking, “Do you think the wage protests (Fight for $15, etc.) are making a difference?”and“Would you participate in a wage protest if it was happening in your area?”After the high levels of participation we received with our minimum wage survey, we were pretty sure job seekers would have an opinion around this topic.

When it came to overall job seeker opinion, it was almost split.Fifty-four percentof job seekers answered “no” when asked if they thought the wage protests were making a difference. And it was nearly equal with 49 percent of job seekers saying they would participate in a wage protest if it was happening in their area while 51 percentwould not.

You may think it’s the younger job seeker population pushing for higher wages as they enter the job market; however, we found that job seekers ages 45-54 years old had the strongest opinion of the impact of wage protests with61 percent stating they believe protests are making a difference.

The most compelling finding was with the 16-24 year old job seekers: 46 percent of participants believe the protests are making a difference and 59 percent would participate in a wage protest if it was happening in their area.

Wage protests are happening more and more in both rural and suburban areas. Job seekers are taking note, curious about the outcome and open to participating if it’s happening close to their hometown. Protect your workforce by openly communicating with your team about these events and allowing them to share what they think and feel. This could help you keep your most valuable workers engaged and speaking positively about your company.

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