2026-02-25 · NextMigrate Team
You Have 10 Years of Experience. Why Does It Feel Like You're Starting Over Every Year?
You have been working for a decade. You have the skills, the institutional knowledge, the pattern recognition that only comes from doing something for a long time. You should, by every reasonable measure, be firmly in the "compounding returns" phase of your career — where each year builds on the last, where your experience translates into greater responsibility, higher compensation, deeper expertise, and expanding opportunities.
Instead, it feels like you are starting over every year. The company you worked at for three years restructured and your role no longer exists. The currency tanked and your savings — the tangible proof of a decade of work — lost half their value in 18 months. The industry you built your career in contracted because the economy contracted. Your new employer wants to pay you based on what they can afford, not what your experience is worth.
You are not imagining this. In economies with structural instability, career experience does not compound the way it does in stable ones. And the data shows exactly why.
What "Compounding Experience" Looks Like in Theory
In a stable economy, a career follows a roughly predictable trajectory. Each year of experience adds to your market value in a way that builds on previous years. This is the compounding effect:
- Year 1-3: You learn the fundamentals. Compensation grows quickly from a low base.
- Year 4-7: You develop specialisation. You start to command a premium for specific expertise.
- Year 8-12: You reach senior levels. Your judgment, network, and track record become your primary assets.
- Year 13-20: You operate at principal, director, or executive levels. Compensation reflects accumulated wisdom, not just current output.
- Year 20+: You are either at the top of your technical track or in strategic leadership. Your experience is irreplaceable.
This is how it works in Canada, Australia, Germany, and similar economies. Not for everyone — career trajectories vary — but the system supports this kind of progression for competent professionals. The infrastructure exists: stable companies, deep labour markets, established career ladders, and an economic environment where last year's gains are not wiped out this year.
Typical Salary Progression: Software Engineer (10-Year Track)
| Year | Canada (CAD) | Australia (AUD) | Germany (EUR) | Nigeria (USD equiv.) | India (USD equiv.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $65,000 | $70,000 | $45,000 | $5,000 | $6,000 |
| Year 3 | $80,000 | $90,000 | $55,000 | $6,500 | $10,000 |
| Year 5 | $100,000 | $110,000 | $65,000 | $7,000 | $16,000 |
| Year 7 | $120,000 | $130,000 | $75,000 | $6,500 | $22,000 |
| Year 10 | $145,000 | $155,000 | $85,000 | $5,800 | $30,000 |
Look at the Nigeria column. The salary in USD terms actually decreases after year 5, despite the professional becoming more experienced and more skilled. The currency depreciation overwhelms the nominal salary increases. India shows real growth, but the absolute numbers remain a fraction of what the same trajectory produces in a developed economy.
The Five Ways Experience Stops Compounding
1. Currency Depreciation Resets Your Savings
This is the most mechanically devastating factor. You save for five years. You accumulate a buffer that represents real progress — enough to put a down payment on property, fund further education, or invest in a business. Then the currency drops 40%, 60%, 80%. Your savings, measured in what they can actually purchase in a globalised economy, evaporate.
This is not a one-time event in countries like Nigeria, Pakistan, and Egypt. It is a recurring pattern.
| Country | Currency Depreciation Events (>20%) Since 2015 | Cumulative Loss vs USD |
|---|---|---|
| Nigeria | 4 major events (2016, 2020, 2023, 2024) | ~87% |
| Pakistan | 3 major events (2018, 2022, 2023) | ~65% |
| Egypt | 3 major events (2016, 2022, 2024) | ~78% |
| India | Gradual, no single event >15% | ~25% |
| Philippines | Gradual, no single event >12% | ~18% |
For a Nigerian professional, four savings-destroying events in a decade means that the financial foundation you build between crises keeps getting knocked down. You do not accumulate; you recover and rebuild, only to get knocked down again.
2. Company Instability Disrupts Career Continuity
In developed economies, it is common to spend 3-5 years at a company and leave on your own terms, with the accumulated relationships, achievements, and career progression intact. In unstable economies, companies are more volatile. They restructure more frequently, downsize more aggressively, and sometimes simply close.
A 2024 survey by the Nigerian Employers' Consultative Association (NECA) found that the average tenure at a single employer in Nigeria was 2.3 years — not because professionals were job-hopping by choice, but because companies were restructuring, downsizing, or failing at higher rates than in stable economies.
| Country | Average Job Tenure (Mid-Career Professional) | Involuntary Departures (% of job changes) |
|---|---|---|
| Nigeria | 2.3 years | 42% |
| Pakistan | 2.6 years | 38% |
| Egypt | 2.8 years | 35% |
| India | 3.1 years | 22% |
| Philippines | 2.9 years | 28% |
| Canada | 4.2 years | 15% |
| Australia | 4.0 years | 14% |
| Germany | 5.8 years | 10% |
| UK | 3.8 years | 16% |
When 42% of your job changes are involuntary — driven by company instability rather than your own career strategy — you lose the ability to build momentum. Each new job involves onboarding, proving yourself again, learning new systems, and building new relationships. The compounding that comes from deep tenure at a growing company gets interrupted repeatedly.
3. The Senior Roles Do Not Exist
Experience is supposed to unlock progressively more senior and valuable roles. But in many developing economies, the organisational structures that house those roles barely exist.
Consider the technology sector. In Lagos, there are perhaps 200-300 companies that employ senior software engineers (8+ years of experience) at appropriate compensation levels. In Toronto, that number is over 5,000. In the entire San Francisco Bay Area, it exceeds 10,000.
This means that a 10-year engineer in Lagos is competing for a handful of senior and principal-level roles across the entire city. The same engineer in Toronto has thousands of potential employers, each with multiple senior-level openings.
| Career Level | Estimated Available Positions (Lagos) | Estimated Available Positions (Toronto) | Estimated Available Positions (Sydney) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Junior Engineer | 5,000+ | 15,000+ | 12,000+ |
| Mid-Level Engineer | 2,000+ | 12,000+ | 10,000+ |
| Senior Engineer | 500-800 | 8,000+ | 6,000+ |
| Staff/Principal Engineer | 50-100 | 3,000+ | 2,000+ |
| Engineering Director | 20-40 | 1,500+ | 1,000+ |
| VP of Engineering | 10-15 | 500+ | 300+ |
When senior roles are scarce, experience hits a ceiling. You have 10 years of skills but the market only has 5-year-level roles to offer. The excess capability is wasted — not through any fault of yours, but because the economy cannot absorb it.
4. Inflation Erases Incremental Gains
Even when you get a raise, even when it is a genuinely good raise, inflation takes its cut. And in countries with 15-30% annual inflation, the cut is large enough to negate most or all of your progress.
The psychological impact of this is cumulative. After three or four years of raises that do not translate into improved living standards, the connection between effort and reward frays. You stop believing that working harder or developing new skills will materially change your financial situation, because the evidence of recent years says it will not.
Year-Over-Year: What a "Good Raise" Actually Buys
| Year | Salary (NGN) | Raise | Inflation | Real Change | Cumulative Real Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 6,000,000 | — | — | — | Baseline |
| Year 2 | 6,900,000 | +15% | +22% | -7% | -7% |
| Year 3 | 7,935,000 | +15% | +25% | -10% | -16.3% |
| Year 4 | 9,125,000 | +15% | +28% | -13% | -27.2% |
| Year 5 | 10,494,000 | +15% | +18% | -3% | -29.4% |
| Year 6 | 12,068,000 | +15% | +33% | -18% | -42.1% |
| Year 7 | 13,878,000 | +15% | +24% | -9% | -47.3% |
A 15% annual raise — better than what most professionals in Nigeria receive — results in a 47% loss of purchasing power over seven years. Your salary nearly tripled in naira. You can buy less than half of what you could when you started.
5. Your Network Gets Depleted
In stable economies, your professional network compounds along with your career. The colleagues you worked with at your first job become directors and VPs at other companies. Your former manager becomes a CEO. Your industry connections deepen and broaden. By year 10, your network is one of your most valuable assets.
In economies experiencing brain drain, the opposite happens. Your best colleagues leave. The mentor who championed you is now in Canada. The engineering lead who taught you everything relocated to Australia. The co-founder you almost started a company with got a job in Germany. Your network does not compound — it depletes.
A 2024 LinkedIn data analysis of Nigerian tech professionals found that among connections who were active on the platform 5 years ago, 34% had updated their location to a different country. For professionals in the top 10% of their network by seniority, that number was 47%.
Career Progression: Same Person, Different Country
Let us trace a single career profile across different countries to see how the compounding effect differs.
Profile: Accountant, ACCA-qualified, strong performer, consistent career progression.
| Milestone | Nigeria | Pakistan | Canada | Australia |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 salary (USD equiv.) | $4,000 | $3,500 | $48,000 | $52,000 |
| Year 5 salary (USD equiv.) | $5,500 | $5,000 | $68,000 | $75,000 |
| Year 10 salary (USD equiv.) | $5,000 | $4,200 | $95,000 | $105,000 |
| Year 10 total savings (USD) | $2,000-$5,000 | $1,500-$4,000 | $80,000-$150,000 | $90,000-$170,000 |
| Year 10 property ownership | Unlikely (without family help) | Unlikely | Possible (with mortgage) | Possible (with mortgage) |
| Year 10 retirement savings | Negligible | Negligible | $60,000-$120,000 (employer-matched) | $80,000-$140,000 (superannuation) |
| Year 10 career level | Senior Accountant | Senior Accountant | Finance Manager / Associate Director | Finance Manager / Associate Director |
The same person, the same qualification, the same work ethic. But at the 10-year mark, the professional in Canada has accumulated $80,000-$150,000 in savings, has retirement funds, owns or is buying property, and holds a mid-to-senior management position. The professional in Nigeria has $2,000-$5,000 in savings (in a depreciating currency), no meaningful retirement provision, and a role that is senior in title but not in scope or compensation.
The Treadmill Effect
There is a name for what professionals in unstable economies experience, and it is the treadmill effect. You are running — hard, consistently, with genuine skill and effort. But the surface underneath you is moving backwards at nearly the same speed. From the outside, it looks like you are standing still. From the inside, it feels even worse than that, because you know how hard you are running.
The treadmill has several specific characteristics:
Your skills improve but your compensation does not reflect it (in real terms). After 10 years, you are dramatically more capable than you were at year 1. But the purchasing power of your salary may actually be lower.
You restart the savings cycle multiple times. Currency crises, inflation spikes, and economic downturns wipe out accumulated savings, forcing you to rebuild from a lower base. The professional in a stable economy compounds continuously. You compound in between crises and then get reset.
Your title advances but your scope does not. You get promoted to "Senior Manager" but the team you manage has four people because the company cannot grow beyond 50 employees in the current economic environment. Your counterpart in Sydney with the same title manages 15 people across three countries.
Your experience deepens but the market does not value it proportionally. A 10-year nurse in Nigeria earns approximately the same in real terms as a 3-year nurse in Canada. The decade of additional expertise is essentially uncompensated by the market.
The Decision Framework for Experienced Professionals
If you are 8-12 years into your career and feeling the treadmill effect, there are several realities worth naming.
Your experience is valuable — elsewhere. The skills, judgment, and resilience you have built over a decade are not worthless. They are undervalued by an economy that cannot price them correctly. In economies that can, the same attributes command 5-15x the compensation.
Time is a factor. Most skilled migration pathways award maximum age points between 25 and 35. After 40, many pathways become significantly harder. The professional with 10 years of experience is typically in their early-to-mid 30s — near the peak of their migration eligibility.
Age and Immigration Points: The Declining Window
| Age | Canada (CRS Age Points) | Australia (Age Points) | Germany | UK |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20-29 | 100-110 | 25-30 | No age limit (but youth preferred) | No age limit |
| 30-34 | 100-105 | 25-30 | — | — |
| 35-39 | 77-88 | 15-25 | — | — |
| 40-44 | 55-66 | 0-15 | — | — |
| 45+ | 0-11 | 0 | — | — |
The compounding clock is ticking. Every year spent on the treadmill is a year not spent on a path where your experience actually compounds. If you switch to a stable economy at year 10 of your career, you have 20-25 working years remaining for experience to compound properly. If you wait until year 15, you have 15-20. The earlier you make the transition, the more of the compounding curve you capture.
The cost of waiting is not zero — it is negative. Waiting another year in a declining economy does not just mean one more year of the same. It means one more year of purchasing power erosion, one more year of network depletion, one more year of reduced age points, and one more year of savings that could have been accumulating in a stable currency.
The Reset Paradox
Here is the paradox that experienced professionals in unstable economies face: making a major change feels like starting over, but staying in place is also starting over — just invisibly, year after year, as the treadmill keeps moving.
Moving to a new country genuinely involves a reset period. You may need to take a slightly lower position initially while your credentials are assessed and your local experience is established. The first year or two might feel like a step backward in status.
But the critical difference is that the step backward in a compounding environment is temporary. The treadmill in a non-compounding environment is permanent. A professional who resets in Canada at year 10 may take 1-2 years to reach their previous seniority level — but by year 12, they are ahead of where they would have been, and by year 15, the gap is enormous and widening.
| Year | Scenario A: Stay in Nigeria | Scenario B: Migrate to Canada at Year 10 |
|---|---|---|
| Year 10 | $5,000 (declining) | $5,000 (pre-migration) |
| Year 11 | $4,800 (declining) | $55,000 (entry-level Canadian role) |
| Year 12 | $4,500 (declining) | $70,000 (adjustment period) |
| Year 13 | $4,200 (declining) | $85,000 (reaching expected level) |
| Year 15 | $3,800 (declining) | $105,000 (compounding normally) |
| Year 20 | $3,000 (declining) | $140,000 (senior leadership) |
| Cumulative earnings (Year 10-20) | ~$43,000 | ~$950,000 |
The 10-year cumulative difference is over $900,000. And this does not account for savings, retirement contributions, asset appreciation, or the career opportunities that stable-economy experience unlocks.
It Is Not About Starting Over
The feeling of starting over every year is real, but the label is wrong. You are not starting over. You are being reset by external forces — currency crises, inflation, company instability, market limitations — that have nothing to do with your competence or effort.
The distinction matters because it changes the frame. Starting over implies you did something wrong, or failed to build on previous progress. Being reset by a malfunctioning economic system is something that happens to you despite doing everything right.
And the solution to being reset by a system is not to try harder within that system. It is to find a system that lets your effort accumulate, your skills compound, and your experience translate into the career progression and financial stability that 10 years of work ought to produce.
That system exists. In multiple countries, across multiple professions, for millions of professionals who have already made the transition. The question for each individual is whether the next 10 years will look like the last 10 — or like something fundamentally different.
