The Index closed at 71 in February, down five points from January and way off its peak of 90 a year ago. Still, you can't blame people for being edgy, considering that many of them have a friend or family member in the unemployment line. How job jitters affect productivity isn't clear. Job worries also can have the opposite effect, with people planning their exit strategies on company time. Instead of working, they're gossiping with colleagues, searching the Web for leaks about layoffs at their company, and e-mailing their resumes to headhunters.
Companies can lose their best people because they're the ones motivated to start looking.
Last month, its staffers learned about an impending second round of layoffs through a jobs-gossip site. When the rumor was confirmed by senior management, several people ditched work in the middle of the afternoon to commiserate at a local bar, says a company insider who kept her job after the cuts. She did so from her desk at work. No one saw her, she says, and she blocked her employer from viewing her resume on the Web site. There could be an upside to downsizing, at least for so-called survivors.