Layoffs and the Holiday Season

With the year end holiday season fast approaching us many people will be afraid to do any Christmas gift shopping out of fear of not having a job after Christmas.

Over the years I have worked for large corporations as well as small companies. Each of them had a reason as to why they would have a work force cutback or layoff. Not all work force cut backs entailed layoffs. Two of the companies I worked for cut back hours. I remember going on a rotating every other Friday off for at least 6 months until business picked up at one electronics manufacturing company in the early 1980's.

If a company chooses to have a layoff it is often the mind set of the upper management when is the best time for it to happen. A company that was founded by the current upper management is less likely to have a layoff before the holidays. The main reason behind that is the fact that they still remember when they were struggling around the holiday season themselves. A company that has a frequent turnover in upper management is more likely to have a layoff just before the holiday season. The reasoning behind that is the fact that they want to save money by not paying holiday pay to their employees. They have more of a monetary mind set rather than a people mind set.

If you are working for a company that you feel might be undergoing some personnel changes around the holiday season, here is what to look for:

Has all overtime authorization abruptly ended?

Have there been more or less upper management meetings lately?

Have several key management people suddenly found other jobs at other companies?

Have shipments and or orders for your products suddenly dropped?

Is the company you work for known to have layoffs right before the holidays?

I do remember about 15 years ago a manager of mine telling everyone to have a nice Christmas holiday but added "don't buy anything expensive". He was told not to tell anyone about the pending layoff that the company was thinking about having after the first of the New Year, but he did want to warn his employees anyway he could. My advice to you is to carefully listen to what your boss and upper management tells you. They maybe dropping hints without coming right out and telling you what is going on.