By Jay Bemis | Advertising Systems Inc.
In 1989’s “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” movie, lead character Clark Griswold is counting on a company bonus that will be large enough to cover the exorbitant holiday decorations with which he’s adorned his home, as well as a new swimming pool.
Instead, he receives a year’s subscription to a jelly-of-the-month club, leading to an expletive-filled rant against his boss.
So, what might your Christmas bonus be looking like as 2025 draws to a close? Decorative, perhaps? Or a steady supply of jelly and expletives for the boss?
Recent research suggests that many workers this year will come away disappointed when holiday bonus time arrives — unless they’re in a hot profession or industry, such as artificial intelligence.
ADP, the payroll software company, says the number of workers getting a holiday bonus has been slipping in recent years, a trend that will continue.
Analyzing payroll data covering 12 million workers at employers with 50 or more people, ADP found that fewer than 40% of employees received a bonus in December 2024, which was down from 44% in 2021.
“Usually concentrated among the most senior and highest-earning employees of companies, bonuses are particularly prominent in industries driven by contract projects like construction and manufacturing,” Forbes said in reporting on the ADP study. But last year, Forbes notes, those bonuses shrunk in size, too: The median bonus payout for workers study fell 4% from the previous year to $1,786 in December 2024, per the ADP research.
Overall, employers are scaling back toward pre-pandemic levels when it comes to bonuses, says Jeff Nezaj, senior principal data scientist at ADP.
And what’s the chance that there may be raises coming in the new year?
Most employers are projecting they’ll keep 2026 salary increases flat, according to another survey, this one from New York-based consultancy Mercer. On average, employers are planning to hold merit increases to an average of 3.2% and total increases to 3.5%, both equal to 2025 increases.
Jack Jones, a principal compensation and rewards consultant at Mercer, told Forbes that a combination of caution over the economy and a cooling labor market is prompting employers to keep salary growth in check. When the total number of unemployed is greater than the job openings, companies don’t have to compete as much on salaries to attract or retain the best talent, Forbes notes.
Mercer’s survey also found that employers are planning fewer promotions for 2026, expecting to promote 9% of their workers, which is down from the 10% who earned promotions in 2025.
To Whom Might the Workforce Turn?
If bonuses keep shrinking and fewer promotions are foreseen, where might employees turn, once they’ve hurled a number of expletives at the current boss and begin looking for new opportunities? The acronymic response would be: AI.
Gartner Inc., an American research and advisory firm focusing on business and technology topics, says investors are forecast to pour $1.5 trillion into artificial intelligence worldwide in 2025.
“With the money flowing, companies are willing to spend on salaries for the right talent,” says Forbes. “Artificial intelligence engineers now earn a median of $184,000,” per Payscale. Forbes also notes that this past year, the fastest growing median wages were for AI development operations and senior network engineers, which have grown 12% and 10% respectively, to $131,000 each.
“If these higher base salaries weren’t enough to entice workers, there are the bonuses, which account for 6.8% of gross pay in the information sector, according to ADP,” adds Maria Gracia Santillana Linares, a Forbes staff writer.
“That’s almost double the 3.5% of gross pay standard for all U.S. workers. … Again, medians and averages don’t tell the whole story — like the extraordinary spending by companies like Meta for the very top echelon of AI talent.”
