More People Will Be Fired in the Pandemic. Let's Talk About It.

[Zorro]

Years ago, I stumbled across some startling research by economists in England and Australia: It takes longer to adapt to the pain of unemployment than to losing a loved one.

The notion completely violated my intuition, at first. Then I considered how very personal getting fired is — it’s often taken as a referendum on your character, your competence — and what kind of crisis of meaning it can create (What am I here for?), and how thoroughly depleting debt and chronic economic insecurity can be. It really wasn’t so strange at all.

It’s time to talk about layoffs. They wound people not just economically, but emotionally and spiritually, and it looks like we’re due for another round. Bloomberg Economics predicted as much in early June, and last week, we began to see it, with entities as diverse as BP, the University of Denver and the city of Peoria shedding employees.

Thursday, the Labor Department reported that more than 1.5 million Americans had filed new state unemployment claims. A grim Friday report from the Federal Reserve to Congress noted, “The path ahead is extraordinarily uncertain.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/opinion/layoffs-coronavirus-economy.html

[Laffy Kat]

1. Oh, I truly expect to be either laid-off or furloughed.

I don't understand why it hasn't happened yet. The HMO I work for has to be hemorrhaging resources right now. We are union, so it will cost the organization major bucks to lay us off, but I do suspect it's something they're looking at. I know they are discussing cutting physicians' salaries. We still have about half our clinics closed right now and have been reopening slowly. We are back to performing routine appointments and elective procedures, but if we shut down again, well, I just don't know.

[captain queeg]

2. Especially when you are older. Getting laid off when I was young didn't really upset me much

But once your past 50 or so you realize losing a long time job you’ll probably never find another that pays as well. I think it’s short sighted of companies to be like that but they most all are. I ended up with a government job later in life. At first it felt like a comedown because it didn’t pay as much but as the years passed I came to appreciate the security and benefits. Most of all decent time off. It’s hard to find a job that gives you more than 2 or 3 weeks a year off outside the public sector. Even public jobs aren’t guaranteed but certainly safer than private. Things have changed so much these days, I tell my son I’m not sure what kind of advice I’d give someone his age. I figure he’s pretty smart and he’ll figure out a path that works for him. But yeah, big changes coming. Likely a long and deep recession.