Exxon’s Planned Pay Raises This Year Won’t Even Keep Up With Inflation

Despite the company’s good year so far, Exxon’s coming pay raises for employees will come in below inflation, new reports suggest. 

Salaries are going to rise about 3.6% for employees who deserve the merit-based raises, reporting from the Seattle Times and Bloomberg says. The largest increases are going to be going to those working in the company’s upstream division that drills for oil and natural gas, the report says. 

Exxon spokesperson Casey Norton said: “Total compensation is highly competitive relative to other companies with whom we compete, both in the marketplace and for talent. Inflation is one of many variables we assess.”

The increases will apply to Exxon’s U.S. office employees and not union contract workers, many of whom already have earned promotions and will get a 5% boost on top of their regular raises. 

Bloomberg writes that the below-inflation increases are a sign of how many white-collar Americans aren’t in line for the kind of salary raises seen for other cohorts such as truck drivers and factory workers amid labor shortages and a spike in inflation”. ‘

Recall, just two days ago, we reported that Exxon said it was on track to meet its 2025 emissions goals four years early. 

In Exxon’s full new corporate plan, which can be found on its website here, the company said it “plans to increase spending to $15 billion on greenhouse gas emission-reduction projects over the next six years while maintaining disciplined capital investments.”

The oil supermajor also said it plans on maintaining capital investments between $20 to $25 billion, per year, through 2027. The company said it has repaid $11 billion in debt, to date, in 2021. Exxon says it’ll be “comfortably” in its range of targeted debt-to-capital ratio by year end.

These plans, of course, follow our reporting in October that the company was considering abandoning some of its oil and gas projects to appease environmental advocates.

The company’s board, we noted in October, which includes three directors nominated by activist investors, had “expressed concerns about certain projects, including a $30 billion liquefied natural gas development in Mozambique and another multibillion-dollar gas project in Vietnam.”

The change in strategic direction comes as Exxon’s board is facing growing pressure from investors to restrain its fossil fuel investments and limit its carbon footprint. The board is also considering the carbon footprint of the new projects, and how they would affect the company’s ability to meet environmental promises it has made. 

Back in September we reported that as part of appeasement of the ESG lobby, the oil giant planned on implementing disclosures of shale emissions. The company announced it would start measuring its methane emissions from production of natural gas at a facility it owns in New Mexico. Exxon joins other shale gas producers, like EQT, who already provide similar data.