Wash away by recession

The advertisements in the newspapers posed a constant reminder that the Christmas season is just round the corner. The trees along the main business district was also donned with bright city lights and colourful decorative buntings. Santas, with their bushy beards and bells are somehow noticeable absent...perhaps it is still too early. Certainly the mood is dampened not only by the economic recession that pervades across the spectrum of society but even the weather is not letting up. Amid the whole gloom, I believe not everyone is affected badly. I would exclude the rich from the list as they are obviously still comfortably sitting on their wealth albeit the values may have lost one or two zeros. Certainly if we look at the professionals, the lawyers, doctors, accountants and those who are holding senior management positions like CEO, COO, CFO, Corporate Secretary, General Manager etc they would still be well cushioned from the impact of the recession. Perhaps they may be denied the additional dressings on top of their main dish, but the fact remains that they would still have their main dish. The next level would be those who are in the middle management. Earnings may be curtailed by employers cutting back on annual bonuses and increments, but they too would have benefited from the employer's generosity with raises in salary in 2007 and all the perks that came with it. Their only fear is that they have to keep themselves employed because when the axe comes down often it would fall on the middle terrain. The lower rankings and those on the shopfloor are the worse off. Though their wages may be small, often they are the target of retrenchments by virtue of their being in large numbers. $1500a month each for 1000 workers is a lot of money for a struggling business, compared with $5000 a month for four senior managers. Besides during bad times companies need good managers to develop the business, or to hold whatever business there is left. The production or shopfloor work can be outsourced or be done by fewer numbers, working a little longer hours.

The signs were there before the tidal waves hit the shores. Yet many in postion of authority did not more than make verbal exhortations and became passive bystanders when the waters crashed on the beaches, wiping away whatever stood in its way. Could we not divert the workers on the shopfloor to other areas? Point them to safer avenues where they can take temporary refuge even though wages may be lower? Did we think about it at all, or did we fail to lift a finger for them?