Recently in Furloughs/Layoffs/Turnover Category

Source: Anne Marie Lofaso, Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2010

From the abstract:
"Talking is worthwhile" - or so preached Clyde Summers. Using that idea as my springboard, I trace the various incarnations of the law's treatment of job security in circumstances of economic distress. In addition to providing unemployment or other post-termination benefits, I demonstrate that the law can have various pre-termination roles that range from least to most cooperative between the parties. These roles include the following: do nothing to notify workers of an impending layoff to furnish workers with information relevant to an impending layoff to compel employers to consult or bargain with employees' representatives with a view to(ward) reaching agreement to compel the parties to co-decide what to do in these situations. After comparing United States federal law (which in many cases mandates advance notification, information exchange, effects bargaining, and sometimes even bargaining) with the European Union's collective redundancies directive (which compels pre-decisional consultation among the parties with a view to reaching agreement), I reason why "talking [before the layoff] is worthwhile." I conclude by showing how my preferred solution - to extend mandatory, pre-decisional bargaining (or at least consultation) over mass layoffs and plant closings to nonunionized workers - effectuates national labor policy as Professor Summers understood it. My simple solution - to give employees voice - also empowers workers to take control of their destinies by helping them to save their jobs and the businesses that employ them when both worker and firm are most vulnerable. Accordingly, my solution both dignifies workers and encourages them to become autonomous agents of their working lives - foundational values in a human-rights approach to labor and employment law.

Source: Jeffrey Pfeffer, Newsweek, February 15, 2010

Much of the conventional wisdom about downsizing--like the fact that it automatically drives a company's stock price higher, or increases profitability--turns out to be wrong. There's substantial research into the physical and health effects of downsizing on employees--research that reinforces the seemingly hyperbolic notion that layoffs are literally killing people. There is also empirical evidence showing that labor-market flexibility isn't necessarily so good for countries, either.

Source: Center for State and Local Government Excellence, January 2010

From the summary:
Hiring freezes, pay freezes, layoffs, and furloughs top the list of ways that local and state governments are cutting costs, according to a Center for Excellence online survey of government managers.

States and local governments also have made significant changes in their benefit offerings.

Source: Rachel S. Arnow-Richman, University of Denver Sturm College of Law, February 11, 2010

From the abstract:
This Article proposes a fundamental shift in the movement to reform employment termination law. For forty years, there has been a near consensus among employee advocates and worklaw scholars that the current doctrine of employment at will should be abandoned in favor of a rule requiring just cause for termination. This Article contends that such calls are misguided, not (as defenders of the current regime have argued) because it grants workers too much protection vis-à-vis management, but because it grants them too little.

A just cause rule provides only a weak cause of action to a narrow subset of workers - those able to prove their firing was for purely arbitrary reasons. It fails to account for the justifiable, but still devastating, termination of workers for economic reasons, by far the most common reason for job loss today. In this way, the rule is not only inadequate, but anachronistic. Just cause protection is consistent with a mid-twentieth century view of the social contract of employment, which anticipates a long-term, symbiotic relationship between employer and employee in an economy dependent on internal labor markets. Under such a system, the just cause rule gave legal force to parties' social contract of employment.

Source: Center for State and Local Government Excellence, January 2010

From the summary:
Hiring freezes, pay freezes, layoffs, and furloughs top the list of ways that local and state governments are cutting costs, according to a Center for Excellence online survey of government managers.

States and local governments also have made significant changes in their benefit offerings.

- Changes in health and retirement plans
Half of the respondents, human resources professionals, report that their governments have made changes to their health care plans:
* Increased employee contributions (69 percent)
* Added number of years required to vest (25 percent)
* Added wellness programs, 24-hour nurse lines, or on-site clinics (25 percent)
* Reduced benefits (23 percent)
* Tiered benefits (15 percent)
* Decreased employer contributions (10 percent)

Among the 21 percent whose governments have changed their retirement plans, 73 percent say the changes have not affected current workers and 60 percent say the changes have not affected new hires.

- Critical positions go unfilled
There are signs that governments need a more strategic approach to their talent challenges. Survey respondents said they are struggling to fill certain critical positions, including jobs in engineering, skilled trades, information technology, health care, finance, law enforcement, and top management.

- Furloughs don't always equal savings
Even furloughs have not produced the savings that had been anticipated in some places. While 61 percent of respondents say that they achieved the savings that had been budgeted, 39 percent said they did not.

- Fiscal constraints and talent challenges
The economic downturn has affected retirement plans, giving governments a little breathing room. Almost half (46 percent) of the survey's respondents report that retirement-eligible employees are postponing their retirements.

Source: Employee Benefit Research Institute, EBRI Notes, Vol. 31, No. 1, January 2010

From the summary:

TENURE LARGELY UNCHANGED OVER 25 YEARS: Data on employee tenure--the amount of time an individual has been with his or her current employer--show that career jobs never existed for most workers, and still do not. The median tenure of workers--the midpoint of wage and salary workers' length of employment in their current job--was virtually unchanged over the past 25 years: 5.1 years at the same job in 2008, compared with 5.0 years in 1983.

GENDER DIFFERENCES: Behind those overall results are very different trends by gender. The median tenure for male wage and salary workers declined (from 5.9 years in 1983 to 5.2 years in 2008) while it increased for female wage and salary workers (from 4.2 years in 1983 to 4.9 years in 2008), leaving the overall level essentially unchanged. PUBLIC VS.

PRIVATE SECTOR: Private-sector workers' median tenure also held steady over the period, near the 3.9- year level of 2008, but the median tenure for public-sector workers increased from 6.0 years in 1983 to 7.0 years in 2008. Over this 25-year period, median job tenure in the public sector increased significantly relative to the private sector, and currently is about 80 percent higher than that of the private sector. Almost 10 percent of public-sector workers have 25 or more years of tenure (significantly more than the private sector), which leaves public-sector employers facing the retirement of a sizable portion of their most experienced work force in the near future.

Source: Chandra Stroth, Journal of Nursing Administration, Vol. 40 no. 1, January 2010
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
RN turnover is expensive and disruptive for rural hospitals, constraining finances, impacting patient care, and stressing remaining nurses. Recent investigations have described a promising new construct related to employee retention: job embeddedness. Leaders in nonhealthcare organizations have adopted a job-embeddedness model to guide retention strategies and experienced a subsequent reduction in turnover. The author explores job embeddedness as an effective retention plan strategy for rural hospitals.

Source: Rachel Willard, National Association of County & City Health Officials, Research Brief, November 2009

From the summary:
NACCHO has completed the second in a series of surveys measuring the impact of the economic downturn on local health departments (LHDs). This survey found that job losses in LHDs are accelerating and that budget cuts are reducing public health services. In the first half of 2009, approximately 8,000 staff positions in LHDs were lost due to layoffs or attrition. An additional 12,000 LHD employees were subjected to reduced hours or mandatory furloughs.
See also:
- Overview of Survey Findings
- State-specific data
- NACCHO Press Release
- Budget Cut Survey Technical Documentation 2009
- Budget Cut Survey Instrument 2009

Source: Jack Meyer and Lori Weiselberg, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and National Association of County & City Health Officials, December 2009

From the summary:
Job losses and budget cuts directly tied to departments' ability to protect health.

The ability of local health departments to protect and improve health is in jeopardy, according to a new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded report by Health Management Associates, an independent research group. State, county and city public health departments keep Americans healthy and safe and prevent disease and injury. Health departments help assure the safety of the water we drink, the restaurant food we eat and the air we breathe; they educate us about and respond to emerging health threats such as H1N1 influenza; they offer preventive care like vaccines; and they develop and enforce new policies and standards to create the conditions that make communities healthier.
See also:
Policy Brief

Source: Patty Enrado, Healthcare Finance News, November 24, 2009

With 100,000 nursing positions currently unfilled and the shortage expected to climb to 340,000 nurses by 2020, healthcare systems need a strategy to reduce nurse turnover.

Healthcare systems should shift their focus from why nurses leave to why they stay, said David Rowlee, vice president of research services for Moorehead Associates, an employee survey and research firm.