As a hiring manager who’s worked at various different scales of organisation, I think the original article is a fair warning.

Headcount doesn’t take 2+ years to resolve. Even in heavily bureaucratic organisations, it’s a few months at worst.

Organisation wide restructures can take years and changes to departmental structure can be suspended while the org restructure happens, barring any unusual and typically director approved circumstances (like scoring major new project with a key client).But any employee would be well aware of such restructures and client projects.

Changes to pay will typically be postponed until the next pay review cycle. So could be up to a year. But if it’s longer then that’s typically a sign that your manager (or above) has already vetoed any such pay increase and they’re not being truthful with you about it.

Ultimately, if you get told to wait 2 years and the reasons are not “company wide restructuring” then there’s some shadow politics going on and you should definitely be reviewing your job prospects. And if there is a company wide restructure happening, then you should also be updating your CV just in case too.

If you get told to wait 3 years the just assume it’s never going to happen. Because you can guarantee even if your management has the best of intentions, priorities will shift multiple times within those 3 years.