Posted on 02/06/2010 10:36:25 AM PST by SeekAndFind
On Sept. 12, 2001, there were no commercial flights in the United States. It was uncertain when airlines would be permitted to start flying again—or how many customers would be on them. Airlines faced not only the tragedy of 9/11 but the fact that economy was entering a recession. So almost immediately, all the U.S. airlines, save one, did what so many U.S. corporations are particularly skilled at doing: they began announcing tens of thousands of layoffs. Today the one airline that didn't cut staff, Southwest, still has never had an involuntary layoff in its almost 40-year history. It's now the largest domestic U.S. airline and has a market capitalization bigger than all its domestic competitors combined. As its former head of human resources once told me: "If people are your most important assets, why would you get rid of them?"
It's an attitude that's all too rare in executive suites these days. As the U.S. economy emerges from recession, Americans continue to suffer through the worst labor market in a generation. The unemployment rate dipped in January, from 10 percent to 9.7 percent, but the economy continued to lose jobs. There are currently 14.8 million unemployed, and when you count "discouraged workers" (who've given up on job seeking) and part-time workers who'd prefer a full-time gig, that's another 9.4 million Americans who are "underemployed." While the pink slips are slowing as the economy rebounds, the lack of jobs remains the most visible—and politically troublesome—reminder that despite what the economic indicators may tell us, for much of the population, the Great Recession hasn't really gone away.
Companies have always cut back on workers during economic downturns, but over the last two decades layoffs have become an increasingly common part of corporate life—in good times as well as bad.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
Please. I was “rightsized” in 1994 and was never able to get another job in the computer industry. That’s 16 years ago, not two.
The guy is an obvious economic moron...
“” The study concluded that the growth in productivity during the 1980s could not be attributed to firms becoming “lean and mean.” Wharton professor Peter Cappelli found that labor costs per employee decreased under downsizing, but sales per employee fell, too.”
And from that he concludes that there should have been no layoffs? If I had been given such data, I would have concluded that there weren’t enough layoffs.
People like this idiot as well as all the enviromarxists should be made to prove their ideas first hand before they try to impose it on society. So he should start a business, watch it go down and keep the same staff in place so we can see how it’s done!
And the 12 percent who said morale hadn't declined were lying.
I think what they are saying is that companies who lay workers off to cut costs and boost profits usually do neither.
Well with that kind of mandate we would be like the old Soviet Union and waiting in lines for the scraps that are available.
That comment will come as a heck of a surprise to the 90% or so of Southwest Airlines employees that belong to unions.
Probably because it's false. The overwhelming majority of Southwest employees are unionized.
As the Maha Rushie says: “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it”.
A company that believes it can cut it's way to greater profits rather than growing it's way to greater profits is very short sighted.
The corollary to that is, "If you aren't part of the solution then there's a lot of money to be made in prolonging the problem."
Can you say Air America?
Exactly!
You wrote: I think what they are saying is that companies who lay workers off to cut costs and boost profits usually do neither.
I think you are pulling that out of an orifice on your body.
Not unless he can get some kind of GOVERNMENT GRANT! He is not going to put his money where his mouth is!
I want him to prove to me his 'theory' by pointing out ONE freaking business who has followed his model that is still in business.
As I recall, Al “Chainsaw” Dunlap actually saved some companies through strategic mass layoffs. Naturally, the history revisionists like to smear him these days, but his services were in high demand because he was successful.
How many businesses do you have that uses his model?
You don't suppose the reason why Southwest was shunned by Orbitz might be that it was founded by Continental, Delta, Northwest, United and American do you?
Don’t waste your fingers. NS is just here to throw bombs and then run away.
There is no loyalty toward workers from corporations, and hasn't been for years and years. Yet for some reason the corporations expect loyalty to the corporation from the workers. Management is truly clueless.
Which means they rarely lay off the right people. It’s always the productive people who get laid off leaving behind the ass kissers and dead weight.
There is some truth to what you say. I've worked in many different industries and seen quite a few different management cultures. There exists across the board a culture of "managers" who exist to "manage" and for whom entrepreneurial spirit is just a form of camouflage. They usually learn the ropes at a larger dysfunctional enterprise. Many executives come from this culture and they see this culture as the "right" one.
Unfortunately this culture is also inept at business. As long as things are good it doesn't matter too much to the bottom line, but the top line will suffer. In a downturn these folks will look after the bottom line, and because they don't understand the underpinnings of the top line, your business will waste away as the supporting staff are let go. These guys don't really understand how a well connected team can be orders of magnitude more effective than a crowd of individual specialists, or how to maintain a culture of trust...they are blind to the negative consequences of their actions. They tend to clog up cross enterprise information flows in the guise of corporate confidentiality or credibility (actually protecting their power). They will chase dollars after a failure instead of treating it as a sunk cost because it is more important to them to maintain a perception of "all-is-well". They may subscribe to measures of productivity supporting an increased number of "managers" but are measures antithetical to true value-added metrics.
In some industries, your company becomes top-heavy in management, all "chiefs with no Indians", as the old saying gos. In the 80's there was a great blood-letting as everyone realized these "middle managers" didn't really contribute much to productivity and were let go in huge numbers...of course some of the good went with the bad (this didn't happen in some companies who made a practice of keeping management simple and focused).
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