The People Forced to Make a Fresh Beginning

By Barbara Rudolph

Bobbie Cooper, a communications manager for MCI, the long-distance phone company, had just returned from her Thanksgiving holiday when she was called into her boss's office. "We are eliminating your position," Cooper was told. At first the message did not quite register. "So where am I going?" she asked. The explanation that followed was painfully clear: she was being fired. Recalls Cooper: "It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was in a state of shock." Cooper, 44, had worked for IBM and one of its subsidiaries for 24 years. She was transferred to MCI when IBM bought a minority stake in the smaller firm last March. Even though Cooper got a severance package of nearly $38,000 from MCI, she remains stunned as she looks for a new job: "They told me to clear my desk and pack my things. And I was gone, just like that. Poof."

Whatever length of service, in small companies or sprawling conglomerates, everyone from floor sweepers to senior executives is facing the possibility of job loss. Despite the merits of restructuring, corporations seem well aware that their new austerity moves pose unprecedented challenges for their employees. By and large, affected firms are trying to ease the pain. More companies than ever before are relying on early-retirement schemes and generous severance packages to entice voluntary resignations as a means of meeting slimming goals. For some employees, no amount of compensation can adequately make up for the loss of the job. But for others, the golden handshake can provide a liberating opportunity to get out of a dead-end job and start afresh somewhere else.

Getting fired, though, is always a jolt. Once the shock has worn off, many people are left with a fragile sense of self-esteem. Even those who remain at work are affected by layoffs, suffering both from what is often called survivor's guilt and from apprehension about their own jobs. Says Elizabeth Uporsky, 30, an accounts-receivable specialist at AT&T, which is undergoing major staff reductions: "Everybody is walking around on pins and needles wondering if they're going to be next. We're reminded of what's happening every day. We have rows and rows of empty cubicles and desks."

For the former occupants of those empty desks, finding a new job can prove difficult. Though the unemployment rate has declined from 10.8% to 6.7% since the 1981-82 recession, the jobless level is still high by historical standards. Since so many companies are resorting to layoffs simultaneously, job seekers may encounter more competitors seeking fewer opportunities. Those who have worked in specialized jobs often find that their particular skills are not readily transferable to new jobs.

More and more companies try to help departing employees find work. Seven years ago, 16% of the 1,000 largest industrial companies offered job-placement or counseling services for outgoing employees. Today, 51% do. In addition, private agencies set up to help laid-off workers find jobs are proliferating. Some 300 of these outplacement firms now operate, compared with twelve companies a decade ago. Says Robert Hecht, chairman of Lee Hecht Harrison, a New York City-based outplacement firm: "Years ago people thought only deadbeats and the lame ended up in outplacement. But that has changed."

Many refugees from large corporations land jobs in fast-growing small companies or start their own businesses. John Cain, 47, left General Electric two years ago when his job as a manager in computer operations was phased out. A 23-year veteran at GE, Cain decided to "chase a lifelong dream," which was to be his own boss. He founded Connecticut-based Scientific Systems, which markets an electronic filing and word-processing program designed for job seekers. Says Cain: "Had I not left GE, I probably would have never been able to pursue this. I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't ready to be set out to pasture."

After 15 years as an accountant for Denver-based Haley-Roth, a health-care firm, Virginia Hughes, 66, is trying to parlay her part-time work as a wedding planner into a full-time career. John Nostrand, 51, had worked for Union Carbide for 15 years when, in December 1985, he took early retirement from his $45,000-a-year job as a manager of factory automation. Nostrand now works as a consultant for the Coopers & Lybrand accounting firm, making about 15% more than he did at Carbide.

Other laid-off workers find they are happier even without their old paychecks. Two years ago, Harry Marsh lost his $30,000-a-year job as a structural engineer for Chicago-based CBI Industries after working there for 18 years. After he had unsuccessfully looked for work for eight months, Marsh decided to stay home with his daughter, 14, and son, 11. His wife earns enough at Bell Laboratories to support the family, and Marsh has launched a small upholstery business that brings in about $5,000 a year. Now that they are saving on taxes, commuting, child care and other expenses, the family's financial position is not much below what it was when Marsh worked at CBI.

The upheavals in corporate America are likely to make large companies lose some of the allure they once held for job seekers. Certainly people will no longer count on a corporation to provide lifetime job security. Says Paul Hirsch, professor of business policy at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business: "The new culture is to keep your nose clean and your bags packed. The moral that people see around them is, if you fall in love with , your company, you're going to get burned."

That is at once too harsh and oversimplified. But at least one lesson is clear: just as companies must adjust to changing times and tougher competitive conditions, so must their employees learn to do the same.

With reporting by Lisa Kartus/Chicago and Thomas McCarroll/New York