Layoffs Can Be Costly

Over 20 years ago, after having worked for a multi-national corporation for four years, I was laid off.  It was a major reduction in force in which hundreds of shop floor jobs and hundreds of salaried jobs were eliminated.  The focus was on reducing costs by headcount reduction.

Those of us who were laid off from salaried positions were aware that at least a couple of dozen new employees had been hired recently, within a few months.  None of them were caught in the cutbacks.  This company felt it was essential to continually get “new blood,” while also “cutting headcount.”

I had run into my boss in a hallway during this period of major layoffs.  I asked him if I should be worried.  No, he said.  I was doing really important work, helping move a major machining line to Mexico.  I was assisting several Mexican engineers during that very time to become familiar with all the machines on the line and to study and copy all the engineering drawings.

The very next day, I received an email from my boss.  He needed to talk to me. How soon could I see him?  When I went to his office at the time I had suggested, he had a Human Resources person with him. He looked awful.  He thought he had seen the final list of layoffs, he told me. He was wrong.  There was another list.  I was on it.

Uneven Unemployment

In my post yesterday, I asked what had changed in the Waste Management company, as a result of  being featured in Undercover Boss, beyond making things better for the people who were chosen by the television show's producers to be in the show.  Larry O’Donnell, the Waste Management COO, directed that actions be taken to improve the situations of those people with whom he worked in the show.  What about other decent, hardworking, under-recognized employees who are struggling to keep their homes?  Are things going to improve for them?

There is a lot that chief officers and high level managers do not see in their companies.  In his column yesterday, in the New York Times, Bob Herbert points out that there is a lot that we all miss about the employment condition of people. Most of all he draws our attention to the fact that our current unemployment rate does not affect us all the same.