I keep hearing people say things like “with oil at $60+ it won’t be long before we are hiring again and benefits return blah blah blah”
Quit lying to yourself. Management has no intention of bringing back 401k, raises, education reimbursement, EXPAT premiums, cost of living adjustments, etc etc etc
They want to reduce headcount
Company will justify YEARS of no raises based on salary curves and your new LOWER ranking due to redistribution of workers across the now empty lower categories due to all the layoffs, no hiring, retirements and PIPs.