Not every employer is laying off its workers. In fact, some are hiring new employers. Despite the economy, according to the New York Times, while 4.8 million people were laid off from their jobs, there were 4.3 million applicants who were hired in the same period. I realize this leaves the employment shortfall at close to half-million jobs lost that month, but then one has it wonder is all of it due to the economy.
It is no secret that every employer has dead wood in its work force. There are people whose skills sets are outdated and have neither the initiative or desire to retrain. There are the employees whose performance levels are sub-par. There are the workers who spend too much time surfing the Internet or engaging other employees and wasting their time. Then there is the office theft issue. On the still expensive but more negligible levels, this could mean the employee who steals office supplies. At the more extreme level, it is the employee who steals valuable databases and proprietary information. This is what they try to sell to your competitors, either to resolve a perceived slight or just to make some money. Either way, in any form, none of it is any good for the working environment.
It should be no secret that employers use economic downturns to rid themselves of the dead wood. It is the perfect excuses. The economy is terrible, times are tight, we have to thin out the staff. Those who are obsolete, overlapping, under-performing, or thieves, can be discharged with minimum of repercussions. They are merely part of a mass layoff policy. The thing is, these are not the people who will be hired back. Other, more valued workers will return to their jobs, or ones like it, when the economy turns around. But the underperformers and underskilled, they are the canon fodder in a recession.
Surely, they will try to find jobs elsewhere. Which is all the more reason the conduct background checks. While a preemployment screening program cannot vet very negative aspect of a job candidate, it can go a long way in weeding out the underqualified. Besides the usual background searches, an intensive interview process and even aptitude and psychological testing may better enable the employer to dodge the deadwood that will most certainly still be floating around once the economy has rebounded.
As with many things in life, there are few bargains out there. So check them out before you hire.
