Three years ago, Clarence Wilsen was abruptly laid off from his job as an analyst at a major West Coast financial services firm. After a year and a half, he found a job at another financial services company. Finally, he figured, his annual income would by year's end be back to where it had been in 1992. Wilsen's plight is just one example of a story that's become all too common in corporate America. The workforce is churning as wave upon wave of people are being let go due to corporate restructuring.
Newspapers carry stories about layoffs weekly.
Seventy-five percent of those polled in a 1994 New York Times survey reported they personally knew of someone who had lost his or her job in the last few years. And the American Management Association's annual downsizing survey found almost half of the companies polled in 1994 reported they laid off on average about 9 percent of their workforce in the past twelve months. Most of us who are still employed work more, and worry more. Gone is the old social contract between employers and employees. And in its place is a system in which employees are loyal to themselves, rather than to a company, and in which employers view long-time employees as expensive burdens instead of valuable assets.