Nothing echoes more ominously through the halls of your average large company than talk of layoffs. Anyone who has been through one of those black days and survived knows the feeling of survivor’s guilt and remembers the tears flowing freely from previously stalwart cohorts. And anyone who lost their job during a layoff knows how it feels to lose a job for such seemingly impersonal reasons. Regardless, it’s never a happy day for anyone.
Most in 2019 seem to feel at least fairly secure in their jobs, and in the general stability of their co-workers’ livelihoods. This information comes courtesy of the latest reading of an ongoing study by Comparably.
Most people are optimistic.Two-thirds of both men and women answered no to a question about whether they were concerned that layoffs were coming at their workplace.
The cautious optimism extends to minority groups.None have quite the faith that Caucasians do, but the Hispanic/Latino (64), Asian/Pacific Islander (64), and African American (62) respondents all were close to the two-thirds confidence level.
The young are less worried than the average respondent. This implies that less experience in the job market, or some experience at less rigorous “first job” style workplaces, leads to a heightened feeling of job security. This number dips the longer a worker has spent in, presumably, the corporate world. By the 51-55 bracket, little more than half of the respondents seemed confident no layoffs were coming. Whether this means they fear for their own jobs or simply predict that company numbers will be thinned out (something they’ve surely seen before) is unclear.
There’s much more certainty in Fort Lauderdale (100% of our respondents said they didn’t fear layoffs) than there is in New York (where only 59% felt confident.) Most major cities such as Boston and Atlanta more closely paralleled the average response.
Latest reading as of Feb. 20th.
