Post-Covid riches: CEOs hit record numbers paying employees pandemic-era salaries

Business owners and CEOs in Chapasthan have started dominating the Forbes Richest list after the end of the Covid-22 pandemic, and it has largely been because no one but the one-percenters know that the pandemic has ended.

CEOs, or bosses in general, realised the untapped potential for riches during the first wave of economic recovery during the pandemic.

"When the pandemic started and the country went into shutdown mode, most of our employees were just happy to have jobs," a CEO of a telecom giant said under condition of anonymity.

"We cut their festival bonuses by half, reduced their salaries, and also realised we did not need as many workers to function," he or she said.

But when the economy started recovering even with the pandemic going on, which involved the poorer people risking their lives by venturing out of home and earning their daily bread, the bosses realised that they could continue skimping on wages and bonuses.

"So, even when we were raking in the profits, we did not take salaries up to pre-pandemic levels. We continued paying festival bonuses that were a fraction of what we paid before," said the CEO.

"That, combined with the reduced workforce, meant much more for us. Essentially, we employ fewer people and pay them even less," chuckled the CEO.

But this rosy state of affairs was threatened when the pandemic started to end. That would mean the excuse of economic slowdown would no longer work on workers waiting for the tide to turn so that they could finally resume their former lives. That is where the Chapasthan government stepped in.

They started announcing new variants of the disease, even as the rest of the world were rejoicing in the end of the pandemic.

News organisations played their part too. Big companies started running advertorials and sponsored content on news outlets saying how bad the pandemic was and how the economy may never recover. Soon, the CEOs stopped paying bonuses. 

The news outlets, meanwhile, were pleased with the revenue and happier still that they could continue paying their employees less.

A government official said the ruse was for the wider good.

"Look, if our CEOs and businesspeople are making waves around the world and entering top lists, it just translates to a good image for the country. That will invite foreign investment, and then maybe we will finally see the economy recover," said an anonymous official.

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