How in the Hell Do You Lose 71,400 Jobs in One Day?
Posted on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 by Frank RocheYep, there were 71,400 jobs lost yesterday. CNN is calling it Bloody Monday. More than 500,000 jobs are being lost a month.
I wish I had some really great HR advice today. I’m a little shell shocked, but here’s what I’d say: For those of you who are still there…kick ass. Do your best work. Stop going to meetings. Start doing things. Make money.
Now’s the time to do our best work.
rick
Jan 27th, 2009
Love your advice. At our company we are wasting time with getting cost approval on each pen and doing 2 month forecasts. I am not sure how that serves clients or brings on revenue.
Frank
Jan 27th, 2009
Thanks, man. I do think it's time to blow up the standard bureaucracy and get people on the front lines. Time to get working.
bfrank
Jan 27th, 2009
People should have been in a 3 year plan at this stage. Good luck.
John H.
Jan 28th, 2009
I'm skeptical of the numbers. I can't help but wonder if job loss reports are misleading at best. Doesn't a report of losing 100 jobs really mean:
1) We're not going to fill 40 of the jobs we have posted.
2) We're not going to fill the 10 jobs we were thinking about posting.
3) 5 jobs were about to retire anyway, we won't replace them.
4) We'll let natural attrition take care of 10 jobs
5) We were trying to find a way to get rid of 10 people anyway, but didn't have the perf. mgmt paperwork in line to let them go.
6) Finally, about 25 truly undeserving employees will get pink slips.
Frank
Jan 28th, 2009
John, it's a good point about how the numbers are calculated. I guess I thought they were people who would go onto the unemployment rolls….I'll have to look closely. Really great example there.
Mark W.
Jan 28th, 2009
Yep, you've got it exactly right, John. The figures are rough estimates, many may never come to fruition, and are put out there to assuage Wall Street analysts in order to boost stock price. There certainly won't be 500,000 people looking for jobs as a result of what's happened in January. That doesn't mean things are going well, obviously, but the news media glosses over some of the important details in order to sell papers or get an audience.