Job security
Job securityTHE REALITY OF JOB LOSS
AND THE PERSEPTIONS OF THE COMMON WORKER
As was the thinking many years ago, if a proverbial horse was too get sick, the farmer would simply get a new horse. Every American worker lives with the fear of being that horse. The fear that they can be easily replaced by another worker, or nowadays, replaced with what is referred to as capitol. As times change and technology progresses, the horse is no longer the only one fearing job loss. In fact, the farmer himself is beginning to have his doubts.
The fact of the matter is, that workers have less to fear than they are willing to admit. A person has to remember that if one worker is fired, then a new worker must take his place. This is called turnover, and tends to be fairly costly. A new worker has to be trained in the new atmosphere, about a new product, to work with a new clientele, to use a new computer system, and simply to learn to work with new individuals in a group, and the group has to learn to work with the new employee.
The decline in job security has been about 10 to 20 percent for men since 1983. For women it seems that statistically their job security has almost gone up. This is not to say that women never get fired, but they seem to show more stability on an overall level.
As far a firing are concerned there has been slow steady increase, while at the same time layoffs are multiplying. Although they are not as high as they have been in the past. This is not to say that the larger numbers of workers losing their jobs is a sign of a dip in job security. One must realize that these losses affect only a small number of the 125-million workers out there. And then about 75 percent of those fired workers end up getting new jobs.
At this point the fear is that a fired...
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