Latest news with #layoff
Fox News
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
State Department to axe 1,800 employees
The State Department will move to layoff nearly 2,000 employees on Friday as it begins its reorganization plan. An internal memo circulated Thursday evening by Michael Rigas, deputy secretary of management and resources, announced that domestic employees affected by the reduction in force (RIF) would be notified "over the coming days." Approximately 1,800 people will be affected, Fox News has learned. The RIF notices plus voluntary departures under the Trump administration amount to a 15% work force reduction. "The departments, bureaus, offices and domestic operations have grown considerably over the last 25 years, and the resulting proliferation of bureaus and offices with unclear, overlapping or duplicative mandates have hobbled the department's ability to rapidly respond to emerging threats and crises or to effectively advance America's affirmative interests in the world," a senior State Department official said. The official added that there are "more than 700 domestic offices for 18,000 people." "A lot of this, as we said, covers redundant offices and takes some of these cross-cutting functions and moves them to the regional bureaus and to our embassies overseas, to the people who are closest to where diplomacy is happening, to empower them with the resources and authorities they need to be able to carry out the President's foreign policy." State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce warned on Thursday the agency would move quickly after the Supreme Court stayed the lower court's injunction blocking the administration from implementing widescale force reductions across federal agencies. A senior official said there are currently no plans for overseas closures of embassies and outposts. They added the State Department will work to preserve the dignity of affected workers. "We're going to work to preserve the dignity of federal workers," the official said. "We want to be sensitive to that process and make sure people have the resources they need … and make sure everyone is treated with dignity."
New York Times
10-07-2025
- Business
- New York Times
From Girl Boss to No Boss
The day she was laid off, Simone Jordan felt joy. At 44-years-old, she'd been working ever since she was 15 when she got her first job at Six Flags. The daughter of a single mother, not working had never felt like an option. She paid for college through a work-study program, then climbed the corporate ladder in New York City to become an executive at Unilever. But the early years of the pandemic drained Ms. Jordan. Her job involved scrambling to help Black-owned small businesses stay afloat in the face of Covid-19 closures and navigating the summer of racial justice protests. She'd also gotten engaged and, in 2022, gave birth to a baby boy at the age of 40, after decades spent sidelining her personal life for her career. As new mothers go, Ms. Jordan was fortunate. She had a dedicated partner, paid maternity leave, and could afford a nanny. But she realized she didn't want more child care. She wanted more time with her child. 'I waited this long to have this glorious little boy,' she said. 'I wanted my moments.' So when Unilever eliminated her role as part of widespread layoffs last fall, Ms. Jordan decided not to return to full-time work. After a life spent 'leaning in,' she decided, for now, there might be other things worth leaning in to. 'People ask me, 'Oh my gosh, what are you doing now?'' said Ms. Jordan, who is working as a part-time consultant and stay-at-home mother. 'I'm like, 'Everything that I put on pause when I was working.'' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
10-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Data Shows Job Security Is Not Falling And Layoff Risk Is Improving
Professionals leaving office after layoff. Job security in the U.S. economy is not in crisis. That's news to my favorite artificial intelligence app, which confidently repeated the usual story about a long-term decline in job security. But the hard data show little change in average length of time on the job. And over decades, the probability of layoff has fallen significantly. Business leaders pitching jobs to prospective employees can use this information to their advantage. The common narrative sees the 1950s and 1960s as an era when people would spend many years at the same company. I wanted to check the data because my father had seven different jobs from 1950 through 1970. Some separations were his choice, some due to the employer downsizing. And my friends' dads, in those years, faced temporary layoffs whenever business was light at nearby factories. The data paint a picture of relatively stable average length of service at a company; reduced incidence of temporary layoffs; and net economic benefits from companies terminating employment, although some individuals may end up significantly worse off. Job Tenure Worsened Then Recovered Average years on the job. The government periodically asks people how long they have been with their current employer. Two Census Bureau economists looked at the data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), which show we are not worse than in the 1950s. There seems to have been a fairly small decline through about 1980, then a rebound. Like much economic data, this isn't perfect because of some technical issues as well as changing demographics. But their chart shows no real crisis. A different approach asked men of retirement age how long they had worked at their longest job. Again, no large trend showed up in the data. Layoff Risk Has Trended Down Unemployment insurance claims as % total employment. People changing jobs when they find a better opportunity sounds fine, but being laid off sounds bad. (Before becoming an independent consultant, I was downsized twice, and I confirm it's frightening and stressful.) But the risk of layoff has fallen. The risk is measured by looking at a year's total claims for unemployment insurance divided by average employment that year. (A claim that lasts many weeks counts as a single claim.) Two aberrations show up in the chart. First, risk of layoff fell dramatically during World War II. And risk rose sharply in the pandemic. Aside from those two episodes, the trend is downward. In the 1950s, roughly 27% of the workforce were laid off at some point in the year. The same measure was down to 12% in the 2010s. (Some people have two separate spells of unemployment, so the actual number of people impacted is somewhat lower.) Some of the improvement was due to general stability in the economy, as measured by the incidence of recessions and variation in GDP. Part of this change was the shift from manufacturing to services, with services employment being more stable. The Tradeoff Between Job Security And Economic Growth Economics is all about tradeoffs. If a country wants to maximize job security, it must give up something: economic growth. Alex Taborrok summarizes it simply: No Exit, No Entry. If a company won't be able to exit an employment relationship, then it will hesitate to enter the relationship. European countries tend to have many regulations that limit dismissals. Tabarrok reports that unemployment is higher and economic dynamism is lower in Europe than in the U.S. India makes dismissing an employee very difficult for firms with more than 100 employees. So companies try to stay below 100. The results is many companies that choose not to grow. And because so many companies cannot capture economies of scale, prices charged to consumers are higher than they otherwise would be. Japan's lost decade occurred partly because the government ensured that capital would continue to flow to money-losing companies. This was done to protect employment, though it starved the promising young companies that could have grown. Money lent to an old, unprofitable business cannot be lent to a young, profitable company. Employee Recruitment Strategy Given the widespread impression of job insecurity, companies can use this to their advantage. A business certainly should not make promises it cannot keep, but it can emphasize the positive. It may want to tell prospective employees how many years it has been since they had to lay off employees for lack of work. It may want to emphasize its profitability. If the company has outside investors, it may want to emphasize their commitment to the enterprise. A dynamic economy always has some firms failing, even in a boom. And some firms will thrive, even in a recession. This creates churn in the labor force. It's not always easy for workers, but in the long run it leads to more job opportunities, at higher wages, for goods that will be sold to consumers at lower cost.
Forbes
10-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Job Security Not Falling And Layoff Risk Improving
Professionals leaving office after layoff. Job security in the U.S. economy is not in crisis. That's news to my favorite artificial intelligence app, which confidently repeated the usual story about a long-term decline in job security. But the hard data show little change in average length of time on the job. And over decades, the probability of layoff has fallen significantly. Business leaders pitching jobs to prospective employees can use this information to their advantage. The common narrative sees the 1950s and 1960s as an era when people would spend many years at the same company. I wanted to check the data because my father had seven different jobs from 1950 through 1970. Some separations were his choice, some due to the employer downsizing. And my friends' dads, in those years, faced temporary layoffs whenever business was light at nearby factories. The data paint a picture of relatively stable average length of service at a company; reduced incidence of temporary layoffs; and net economic benefits from companies terminating employment, although some individuals may end up significantly worse off. Job Tenure Worsened Then Recovered Average years on the job. The government periodically asks people how long they have been with their current employer. Two Census Bureau economists looked at the data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), which show we are not worse than in the 1950s. There seems to have been a fairly small decline through about 1980, then a rebound. Like much economic data, this isn't perfect because of some technical issues as well as changing demographics. But their chart shows no real crisis. A different approach asked men of retirement age how long they had worked at their longest job. Again, no large trend showed up in the data. Layoff Risk Has Trended Down Unemployment insurance claims as % total employment. People changing jobs when they find a better opportunity sounds fine, but being laid off sounds bad. (Before becoming an independent consultant, I was downsized twice, and I confirm it's frightening and stressful.) But the risk of layoff has fallen. The risk is measured by looking at a year's total claims for unemployment insurance divided by average employment that year. (A claim that lasts many weeks counts as a single claim.) Two aberrations show up in the chart. First, risk of layoff fell dramatically during World War II. And risk rose sharply in the pandemic. Aside from those two episodes, the trend is downward. In the 1950s, roughly 27% of the workforce were laid off at some point in the year. The same measure was down to 12% in the 2010s. (Some people have two separate spells of unemployment, so the actual number of people impacted is somewhat lower.) Some of the improvement was due to general stability in the economy, as measured by the incidence of recessions and variation in GDP. Part of this change was the shift from manufacturing to services, with services employment being more stable. The Tradeoff Between Job Security And Economic Growth Economics is all about tradeoffs. If a country wants to maximize job security, it must give up something: economic growth. Alex Taborrok summarizes it simply: No Exit, No Entry. If a company won't be able to exit an employment relationship, then it will hesitate to enter the relationship. European countries tend to have many regulations that limit dismissals. Tabarrok reports that unemployment is higher and economic dynamism is lower in Europe than in the U.S. India makes dismissing an employee very difficult for firms with more than 100 employees. So companies try to stay below 100. The results is many companies that choose not to grow. And because so many companies cannot capture economies of scale, prices charged to consumers are higher than they otherwise would be. Japan's lost decade occurred partly because the government ensured that capital would continue to flow to money-losing companies. This was done to protect employment, though it starved the promising young companies that could have grown. Money lent to an old, unprofitable business cannot be lent to a young, profitable company. Employee Recruitment Strategy Given the widespread impression of job insecurity, companies can use this to their advantage. A business certainly should not make promises it cannot keep, but it can emphasize the positive. It may want to tell prospective employees how many years it has been since they had to lay off employees for lack of work. It may want to emphasize its profitability. If the company has outside investors, it may want to emphasize their commitment to the enterprise. A dynamic economy always has some firms failing, even in a boom. And some firms will thrive, even in a recession. This creates churn in the labor force. It's not always easy for workers, but in the long run it leads to more job opportunities, at higher wages, for goods that will be sold to consumers at lower cost.
Wall Street Journal
27-06-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
How I Lost My Career and Started Delivering Mail
One morning in early March 2020, I was in the Charlotte, N.C. airport, rushing to make my flight to New York, where the boutique marketing agency I worked for was based. I was head of strategy and we were kicking off a big project with a new client, a somewhat secretive law firm. Then I got a call that the meeting was off, postponed indefinitely. The law firm had decided to shelve the project because of what the gate agent in Charlotte called 'this virus thing.' 'Everybody is turning around and flying home, hon,' she said. I was still waiting for my flight home to Virginia when the call from my boss came. 'Steve,' he said, 'we're both adults, so I don't need to belabor this.' He was a gentleman and a pro about it, like he always was. I'd had the pleasure of working with him for years, and now that was over. I was being laid off.
