Where are the jobs?
06/28/09 06:56 AM Filed in: Looking
for meaningful work
I am really sick and tired hearing that “consumers are needed to spend us out of this recession” because frankly it’s not going to happen. Those consumers who still have jobs are saving more money and spending less and in the process they are paying down debt.
Granted that some of the people unemployed are caught in the transition from a labor based economy to a knowledge based economy. There aren’t a lot of manufacturers who can compete with factories outside the US and when every American car has an additional price tag of $1800 for healthcare costs their products are already at a disadvantage. But this recession is also claiming a hell of a lot of white collar workers as well. Why is this happening? Here are my reasons...
1. Make the numbers: Companies first obligation is not to employees but to shareholders and as such they will shed any jobs they can to make their numbers for the street.
2. Where’s the value? Senior managers do a very poor job of communicating upward the job that middle managers do therefore executives may look at these people and say “do we really need them?”
3. Do more with less = increase work loads: After all where are our employees going to go there is no job market out there right now?
4. Scale back investments: Cutting the budgets to make the balance sheet look good is shortsighted and a bad mistake yet more and more companies are doing just that.
5. 50% off: Sales lead to an erosion of brand equity and less profits which means less infrastructure support
6. Outsource everything: Again a poor excuse that shows that executives don’t understand the value that some functions bring to the organization.
There seems to one other thing that I keep hearing: and that is that most senior managers will do and say anything to save themselves even if it means sacrificing staff. I have read stories about people taking credit for others work and lower ranking managers forced to work longer and harder to satisfy promises made by their bosses without their knowledge or input. It seems that when we come upon hard times we are all asked to take a bit out of a shit sandwich but when the good times are here we are often placated with 2-3% raises and small bonuses.
I predict that when jobs start appearing, and they will eventually, that a lot of people are going to tell their employers to “stuff it” and look for jobs that are more personally rewarding than financially rewarding. Having an organization that listens to its employees and having a boss who listens to you and takes input and is more like a mentor is worth a hell of a lot more than an additional bump in salary and people are quickly finding this out...