However, layoffs are typical of and profitable to corporate America. Between 1980 and 1993, Fortune 500 companies alone slashed 4.4 million jobs. At the same time their sales increased 1.4 times, assets increased 2.3 times, and CEO compensation increased 6.1 times, according to David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World . Mobile and increasingly global corporations have no loyalty to workers, communities or to the natural world. These are only useful to either be exploited or played off against each other.
Automation is responsible for massive corporate layoffs too.
Jeremy Rifkin in The End of Work asserts that computers have contributed to a decline in blue collar factory workers and will prevent a mass increase in future job creation in the service and knowledge sectors. First, we must share our hearts and resources with those laid off. Second, we must name the source of this problem correctly. The reason for massive layoffs and declining real wages is not because of big government, immigrants, affirmative action or the poor. It's because huge corporations, supported by their bought or rented public officials, are economically irresponsible and politically unaccountable in our national and global economies.