Layoffs—The Employee’s Nightmare
“It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was
in a state of shock.”—
Communications manager,
age 44.
“It’s a terrible blow to your selfconfidence. You feel worthless.”—
Chief financial officer, age 38.
“What kind of economy have we
created that sacrifices people in
their prime?”—Clothing executive,
age 47.
WHAT experience did
these individuals share?
Each went through the
traumatic experience of
being laid off from work.
Look again at the ages
of those workers. They
were not novices, so they
likely felt that they had a
measure of job security.
And they were at what
many would consider their
peak earning years. But the
end of their employment
was quick and unexpected.
“They told me to clear my
desk and pack my things,”
said the communications
manager mentioned above.
“I was gone, just like that.
Poof.”
What Happened?
Economic uncertainty is nothing new. In many
countries, there have always been periods of relative
prosperity followed by recessions or depressions.
And the recent economic downturns experienced
throughout the world, even before the war in the
Persian Gulf, showed how fragile economies could
be even after years of relative prosperity. Many people, some for the first time, realized that they could
not take their jobs and incomes for granted.
The effect of the economic slowdowns on the
work force was staggering. Companies were compelled to cut costs to the bone, often resulting in
sweeping layoffs. In the wealthier, industrialized
member states of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, a total of some
25 million people were unemployed at one time.
“Almost every day I get calls from friends in
large companies who have been let go,” said a home
-interior designer. “A lot of the companies I work
with are down to half the business they had a year
ago.”
Layoffs have always been part of
blue-collar life. In the recent
downturn, an increasing number
of white-collar workers also lost
their jobs. “These are the economic icon jobs,” said Dan
Lacey, editor of the newsletter
Workplace Trends, “the jobs that
gave us the ability to buy a house
in a nice neighborhood and drive
two cars.”
Many of those jobs were lost in
the last few years. And the workers who were laid off found
themselves, as Newsweek put it,
“weighted down by mortgages,
young families, big bills and an
increasingly uncertain future.”
What Are the Effects?
There is a twofold impact to all
of this: Laid-off workers are hit both financially and
emotionally. The financial strain is obvious. With
less income, one’s standard of living must be adjusted. And unemployment has an emotional effect
as well.
For example, the outlook of young people toward
job security changes. Sporadic employment becomes
a normal, accepted way of life. The Wall Street Journal noted that off-and-on unemployment has turned
many of Britain’s youths into “permanent adoles-
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