Laying Off Workers During Economic Downturns
This is an excerpt from the paper...
When an individual accepts an offer of employment from a company, there is an implicit contract involved: the employee agrees to perform services for the employer at an agreed-upon pay rate. So long as the employee performs to the standards of the employer, the employee can expect to continue working. When companies begin suffering economic losses, however, resources are trimmed. Since human resources often represent the largest investment a company has, American companies tend to cut jobs in order to save money. The result is that workers who have otherwise been performing their jobs well can find themselves out of work. If the layoff occurs during a recession, new work can be difficult to obtain. Some companies have policies which make layoffs a last resort alternative, but even some of these reconsidered that strategy during the recession of the early 1990s. This research examines job security in the American workplace, compares it to job security in Japan, and considers the economic ramifications of job security on the employee and the employer.Job security can be broadly defined as affecting all aspects of the workplace. For example, Labor Secretary Lynn Martin included in her definition of job security the ability to move upward in a company's organization, the safety of the workplace from industrial accidents, the removal of sexual harassment, the removal of discrimination, and the general improvement of the skills of the American workforce (Overman, Decembe
. . .
l workers are laid off. Retail is especially vulnerable to recessions and workers in this sector are affected not only by people slowing their spending patterns in anticipation of lack of pay increases, but also to people cutting back in anticipation or in realization of the loss of a job.
Companies do not hire permanent employees with the intention of laying them off. There is a significant investment that goes into training and educating employees, and the loyalty that is built up over years of service is difficult to replace should employees be lost to other jobs or through layoffs. It is in the company's best interest to retain employees over long periods of time. However, American companies traditionally look to cutting employee costs when downturns in the economy occur, and it is only recently that companies have attempted to change this direction.
In order to avoid layoffs, some American companies have learned from the Japanese companies and use temporary workers to meet peaks in their demand. This requires training the temporary workers, but they can be dismissed when the peak has passed and the company does not lose the more valuable permanent members of its work force. Companies also encourage the use of overtime
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Zellner February, Schwartz November, Fallick October, Wood January, Kertesz September, Madigan September, , Overman December, Anderson July, Instead American, job security, american companies, february 26, zellner february, 26 1990, hoerr zellner, february 26 1990, hoerr zellner february, japanese companies, zellner february 26, wood january 27, workers laid, january 27 1992, 27 1992, january 27,
Approximate Word count = 4134
Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Laying Off Workers During Economic Downturns
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
