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Originally Posted by Unregistered
Banking vs oil and gas. Let me chip in. Am in education, mid 30s, $200k per annum. Regular working hrs 5 day week, no OT, no stress, lots of family life. May not be comparable to salaries in banking or oil and gas if compare absolute salary. But if you factor in the actual working hour put in and other factors such as effect of stress on health, could be comparable, if not bettter.
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We're talking about median salary here. Congrats for earning $200k/yr at your mid 30s in the education industry. However, that's definitely not common.
Anyway, part of the reason why Banking and O&G companies pay high salaries is because they are volatile/cyclical industries, and are more prone to laying off people. This phenomenon is obvious in banking - just look at HSBC, Goldman, RBC, MacQ, etc. This is happening in O&G too, ever since the prices of oil fell significantly over the past year. Furthermore, Big oil's profit is suffering, which would also lead to lower bonuses. The era of high-oil prices, as according to many oil analysts and Big Oil CEOs, seem to have ended. This is a very significant issue since the base salaries in the O&G industry is quite similar to the rest of the industries, with the high bonuses contributing to the high overall salary package in the O&G industry.
The thing to note is that there's no free lunch in the world. It's often the case that high salaries come with certain downside factors, such as having a higher chance of being laid off.