How Secure Is Your Job? [View All]

Author Louis Uchitelle talks about how the rising tide of layoffs in corporate America isn't just damaging the nation's job security, but our sense of self-worth.

In his new book, "The Disposable American," New York Times business writer Louis Uchitelle takes a sobering look at the sordid history -- and the future -- of layoffs in America.

Though the bulk of his expertise lays in the business realm, Uchitelle argues that layoffs' ascending frequency isn't just damaging America's job security, but our sense of self-worth. He writes that the ever-insidious "self-help" movement (specifically, books such as "Who Moved My Cheese?") has encouraged workers to accept more responsibility for their own job security than necessary -- unfairly placing the whole burden of fair wages, pensions and workplace stability on employees' shoulders rather than the corporate heads hiring (and firing) them in the first place.

Unsurprisingly, almost every person he interviews in "The Disposable American" seems to prove Uchitelle right. The human stories shared in the book echo Uchitelle's hypothesis that getting laid off has long-term negative effects on motivation and self-esteem, as well as making it harder to land a more challenging position the next time around.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/34283/