Business Trends

Question of the Day – August 7, 2009 – Can Businesses Really Do More With Less?

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At the end of 2007 a large Midwestern US insurance company instituted mandatory 55 hour workweeks for their underwriters.

A year later, that same company a laid off a bunch of  people.  Some of these employees were the same people from whom management mandated OT from just one year prior.

The hamsters are dying.  I don’t think they can do more with less.  Time for a new business model.

My answer to the question is NO.

Businesses Learn To Make Do With Fewer Workers : NPR

Since December 2007, the labor market has seen a net decline of 6.5 million jobs.

Read This After You Digest Yesterday’s Scary Chart

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Workforce Blogs – The Business of Management

But when an overwhelming 85 percent of the unemployed say that they’d take a job for 20 percent less than they made before, then maybe it’s time to stop blaming the out-of-work people for their predicament and focus on the real issue: a shattered economy that looks like it’s going to stay shattered (at least in terms of job growth) for a long time.

Creepy Statistic of the Day – July 13, 2009

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I got the following from an email sent by Workforce Recruiting:

NORTH AMERICAN RETAINED SEARCH REVENUE GROWTH VS. YEAR EARLIER

(Percentage change)

Q1
’08		 Q2
’08		 Q3
’08		 Q4
’08		 Q1
’09
Korn/Ferry Intl. 9.6% 9.1% -2.2% -29.5% -42.8%
Heidrick & Struggles Intl. -7.3 -1.4 -0.2 -14.7 -40.0
Total 1.9 4.1 -1.3 -23.1 -41.7

Note: Korn/Ferry’s revenue has been adjusted to a regular year ended December 31 from the company’s fiscal year ended April 30. North American fee revenue for Korn/Ferry includes revenue from FutureStep.

Source: Company reports, Staffing Industry Analysts Inc.