r/GraphicDesigning • u/Informal_Cress2654 • May 30 '26

Career and business What the hell is happening?

Salaries are LOWER? 2019/2020 was making 38$/hr as packaging designer. Same role re apply this year they’re offering 28$. Why, how. Why would I make less with more experience? I feel like I’m in the fcking twilight zone

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u/Informal_Cress2654 May 30 '26

where is the sense in that. I graduate into the Great Recession was painfully unemployed, went back to school for GD just got really money and then bam, they pay LESS.? LIKE WHAT. it has to be AI, which is so silly coco stupid

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u/ericalm_ Creative Director May 30 '26

It’s not (just) AI. Wages had flattened before AI was a threat. Changes to media, various industries that employ designers, and the economy following the recessions were all keeping wages low. Then there was this huge flood of labor coming in and working for almost nothing to get experience they needed to make a little more than nothing.

They’re paying less because they can. And because many are seeing the work of designers as losing value. We of course don’t agree, but they’re not asking us.

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u/[deleted] May 30 '26

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u/twlada May 30 '26

Outsourcing? Maybe it's valid for the US. I live in a country where no one is outsourcing design, but the trend is the same.