Apple losing engineers due to low salaries? Not so fast

A post on Slashdot by Oren Hurvitz yesterday highlights a Glassdoor analysis, claiming engineers at Apple have significantly lower annual salaries than their Silicon Valley (and Redmond) peers:

• Apple: $89,000
• Yahoo!: $105,375
• Microsoft: $105,642
• Google: $112,573

The post asks, "Will Apple have to raise salaries to match the market rate, or face defections?"

Cnet's Matt Asay says, essentially, "nah." Apple's high stock price and options benefits are likely a reason many engineers are staying. Plus, he asks, "where are these developers going to go?" The coming [staying? already-here? -- ed.] recession and a sagging employment market aren't going to make it easy for engineers to find higher-paid jobs elsewhere in the Valley.

On the other hand, Hurvitz notes on his blog that when squared with the company's net income, Apple's engineers are getting the short end of the stick, since their low salaries made a large difference in Apple's bottom line.

Even so, Asay says, "Apple has time to figure this out and may not need to do anything."