Corporate Layoffs and Employee Engagement
By Jaime Jusidman

Economic Reality in the Workplace

According to the United Stated Department of Labor, today Americans are more concerned about job security than they are about the Nation’s security war on terror, health care or education. Our sense of well-being is anchored in the ability to perform a job that enables us to provide for our families and ourselves; a job that we can depend on. The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently announced that 10 million Americans are currently unemployed; 524,000 jobs were lost in December bringing the total to 2.6 million for 2008 alone, and the first quarter of 2009 is expected to be much worse. Similar staggering statistics are also quoted in the Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Business Week.

Layoffs are a natural response for employers, as they struggle to sustain in the face of the worst recession since 1930. Many people have lost trust in the institutions that are supposed to provide a healthy level of stability and certainty in our lives – our government, our banks and the companies we work for. We are living in an anxious world, as employers and employees. Unfortunately, sustained levels of anxiety make it harder for people to concentrate and process information, significantly hindering job performance. Anxiety is also infectious, particularly in the workplace, where one employee’s feelings of job insecurity can escalate to collective hysteria.

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