I guess my point was largely that in previous updates the game took my characters' existing experience numbers (which were pretty substantial) and simply upgraded their levels to match. Here, it looks like it tried to reset things to reflect the new gameplay adjustments and something got lost in the shuffle. Behold Amber, who had something like 3000 experience points in bartending previously in this save, completely fail to hit even the lowest clear point for Level 4 Denise:
Another possible bug: when the week was up and it came time to rehire the staff, they suddenly decided to work for free. I know they're all hot for the MC's staff training sessions, but I doubt they'd be this generous. Joking aside, only Laura has the tarot card for zero salary equipped.