CEO Salaries Go Up When Employees Are Cut -- Hmmm!

New research from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) claims that there is a direct correlation between layoffs and increased salaries for CEOs.

IPS analyzed the top 50 companies who had high layoffs during the recession and found that the CEOs of these firms received 42 percent more pay last year then their peers. The report, CEO Pay and the Great Recession, accuses CEOs of cutting staff to boost short-term profits.

According to Fortune, the 50 companies that were targeted by IPS are responsible for cutting 531,000 jobs in less than two years while the CEOs took home an average $12 million this past year. Lay offs are the norm in nearly every industry but the IPS report is one of the first to analyze CEO pay during staff cuts.

In addition to cutting jobs and increasing CEO pay, IPS is also pointing out that many of these layoffs these 50 companies made were during a time of positive earnings reports.

Companies that are being put in the hot seat by the IPS report include Johnson & Johnson, Walt Disney, AT&T, Verizon, IBM and Merck. No banks were on the list created by IPS, despite many making the first list of companies with the highest layoffs.

Laying off employees for short-term profits is exactly that - short-term - so IPS believes that increased CEO pay during staff cuts may be trouble for these firms in the near future.

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