Layoffs are bad for business…

Even there are these wise words: ‘’ if people are your most important assets, why would you get rid of them?” We could say that the latest years, especially in 2009 when there was a recession, there weren’t almost no company that didn’t cut staff. We are in the worst labor market generation at the moment. There are currently 14.8 million unemployed. The difference with the last century is that layoffs have become an increasingly common part of corporate life. In bad or even in good times companies cut staff. But the most important reason of layoffs is a temporary drop in demand. But cutting of workers is only a temporary solution, something that a lot of managers won’t admit. We can even say that these layoffs literally kill people. Even there are some experts that believe labor markets needs to be more flexible, has reality proven the opposite. LAYOFF DOESN’T WORK. We can say layoffs have more negative effects than positives (almost none). Just like they say ‘layoffs increase profits we can say by sure the contrast is been proven: downsizing reduces subsequent profitability’. Layoffs don’t even reliably cut costs. It will make that the people the company won’t lose will leave first because of an increase of fear on the workforce. Layoffs are like bloodletting, weakening the entire organism. This can be explained by the following theory; a company cuts people, customer’s service, and innovation fall in the face of a smaller and demoralized workforce. People with lower skills need to take more responsibilities than before.It is like al circle that continuous…People lose jobs, spend less, companies need to downsize productions; again people lose jobs…and so on.When you really need to make layoffs you can make a smaller hit on the moral by, for example, cutting senior executives. But even than isn’t the best solution. You need to know that in America you lose your health insurance by losing your job. What makes it for many people hard to pay operations and pills when they need it. When people their jobs, they get angry and depressed, we could say that isn’t a big surprise. It is even been proven that people who suffered a layoff or watched a loved one lose a job has increased rates of alcoholism, smoking, drugs... We hope managers will learn of their mistakes by believing layoffs aren’t a good option so there will be no more in the present.A long article that I can summarize by one small sentence: Layoffs are bad for people and companies. The writer is really against layoffs and he has it right. Layoffs haves more negative sides then there are positives about it. But at my opinion in some cases managers have no other option than layoff people. When they need to reduce costs it isn’t, in some cases, not enough to reduce in production or stock. In this case they have no other chose than making layoffs. I agree that layoffs are bad and not good for workers and also not for the company themselves. I could even say a business without any layoff would be the idealistic market. But I don’t believe this exists in real lifeand it will never be. We need to be realistic and believe that layoffs will never disappear. But we need to take the best options a try to make the layoffs as comfortable as possible as we can for the workers.

By Julie Joostens

Source: Magazine: ' Newsweek' , Februari the 15th 2010