By Gary Dickson
There is hardly a workplace I know of or a worker I know who hasn”t been impacted by business job cuts due to the economy over the past several years. One only has to read the paper or watch the television news to learn of recent cutbacks. In mid-July Cisco Systems laid off about 700 workers from its headquarters in San Jose. According to its CEO, the company will reduce its work force a total of 1,500 to 2,000 this year. That is just one company.
In addition to the private sector workforce reductions, here in California we have all been made aware of city, county and state job cuts because of the lack of money being funneled into our government entities. Rarely, in the history of California have such draconian cutbacks of government workers been witnessed or necessary, for that matter. No longer can a city, county or state government employee count on the job security that once seemed to be a part of the lure of those government jobs.
While it appears that there is no escaping the belt tightening at most private businesses and most levels of government, there is one highly noticeable safe haven where, regardless of the economy, no one seems to fear the loss of their job. The employees who work there are probably still getting regular pay raises, too. That bastion of security is the federal government.
A recent USA Today nationwide employment survey reported that “Death ? rather than poor performance, misconduct or layoffs ? is the primary threat to job security at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Management and Budget and a dozen other federal operations.”
With small businesses going under left and right during the past few years I would think the Small Business Administration, since the federal government is also wallowing in debt, could have laid off a few employees to save some payroll expense. But no, the SBA didn”t lay off a single person last year. It only fired a total of six workers for poor performance. On the other hand, 17 staff members died while on active duty status.
Statistics indicate that the least secure among federal employees are the blue collar workers. They are twice as likely to be fired as a white collar federal employee. Out of 12,700 federal food service employees there was a firing percentage of 2.5 percent last year. White collar federal employees earning more than $100,000 per year have a job security rating of 99.82 percent. The survey mentioned that out of the 35,000 federal attorneys, just 27 were fired last year, while 33 died.
Department by department layoffs and firings are so low that it made it possible for Dennis Cauchon, the USA Today reporter, to write that death is the primary job loss threat for federal employees.
During tough economic times it may not be conceivable that the federal government would or should lay off the same percentage of employees as private industry and local, county and state governments. But, a rational person would at least expect our federal government to tighten its belt a little more than the paltry 385 federal layoffs that took place last year.
I would rather not hear of anyone losing their job. Job cuts are not a sign of the prosperous times that we want to someday return to. I just think that at a time when our federal government is facing the largest debt total in its history, there should be a greater effort on the part of the federal government to trim its expenses.
Note: This is a special July. It has five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays. This only happens once every 823 years. Unless you are Methuselah reincarnated, you will never experience this again.
Gary Dickson is the publisher of the Record-Bee. Call him at 263-5636, ext. 24. E-mail him at gdickson@record-bee.com.
