Should Employers Prepare For Mass Exodus?

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thank you for your inspiring comments. I have been job hunting since October 2008. I have a folder with email printouts approximately 2 inches thick, of places that I have applied to work. It is so discouraging. Have been on a tight budget since last year. In Jan.2009 my husband was laid off, but he got fortunate and found a job in April. This is harder to go through than when I went through cancer, believe it or not. That part I am still trying to understand. but your comment shows you can endure. and if you can endure, maybe I can endure. and that is all it takes to have some hope. You have survived, and endured. and along the way taught others not to give up, even if you didn't realize you were teaching us that. thanks again for your remarks.

Lou Ann of NC 4:32PM June 23, 2009

Exodus of a company's best talent is inevitable, esp. in finance. Because some finance companies have their hands tied on giving out bonuses to the real entrepreneurs or rain makers of their firms, anybody with common sense should expect the best talents to start looking for jobs elsewhere.

ChowJOBS of NY 11:58PM June 22, 2009

Per your question below, here's what I'm talking about.

Because some CEOs can get tens to hundreds of millions in bonus (on their stock options) by raising the stock price of their firms for a few quarters, they outsource (often overseas) everything possible to bump up the short term quarter-to-guarter earnings. If the CEO was taxed at 70% on incomes over say $10 million, he would have less incentive to do that.

Over-incentivizing executives to cut jobs (to save cost) means, sure enough, you pay somebody jillions to cut jobs---and then you let him keep it with low tax.

Muser of NM 3:57PM June 20, 2009

When I was offered my current position as a Customer Service Specialist, I was relieved and delighted. For over 15 years I had owned a kitchen and bath design business that specialized in wholesale granite and marble. The economy's tumble began to affect my business long before the rest of the country felt the real pain. In one fell swoop, during the summer of 2008, I lost over $200,000 in a series of builders' bankruptcies.

For months I lived off of savings, keeping my mortgage current, but finally ran through that small amount, losing my beloved Volvo to a repo man in the middle of the night, a sure sign, I believed, that I had finally fallen into the category of "white trash". Holding a Master's degree in Design, and a B.A. in English does not make one necessarily a prime employer's catch in a tiny Southern town where ones' proper grammar can easily ostracize you and you hear over and over, the words "over-qualified".

After weeks and weeks of financial agony, ruined credit scores and living off the charity of my family, I found a job with a company that pays $10.25 per hour, requires me to attach myself with a wire to a phone that rings endlessly with disproportionately disgruntled members of the human race on the other end with infinite varieties of complaints. My left-brained head aches with the smug and silly corporate lingo and I crave conversations with others that know the industry I worked in for so long.

What I have learned, however, is this: I am so thankful to have this job, no matter how trivial it may seem to those oh-so-supercilious executives who speak rudely and sharply to me. I am so grateful to my new friends who work alongside me and experience the same kinds of human behavior that astounds in its boorishness. I am proud to get up everyday and have a time clock to punch, checks that will clear and food in my refrigerator. Gone are those days when I had to leave my grocery cart at the check-out, followed behind by my bewildered and hungry sons because my account was overdrawn.

Having lived my life so far at both ends of the spectrum, I know that I will miss European vacations, day-spas and long weekends at my old lake house, miss museum galas and flying first class. But I will always treasure the fact that when push came to shove, to use that old cliche, I survived and walked away from the wreckage with my head held high - even while wearing my new head-set.

Kris Bain Lipscomb of AL 4:00PM June 19, 2009

You wrote:

Low taxes helps your corporations make decisions to send your jobs overseas. Plenty of them went bye-bye, never to return. Wanna save the rest?

Please explain...not saying I disagree, just don't understand how low taxes will send jobs overseas. It has been proven that States with low or no income tax encourages businesses to set up in those places.

P.G. of CA 12:39PM June 19, 2009

for a new job does not mean they'll find one. Real wages and benefits are still declining in the USA---and they have been since voters in 1980 decided they liked Ronnie Reagan. Buffoons, we were--- for starting down his road. And our kids, as a result, are all (like, say, per THIS article) running around in search of an elusive slice of a diminished pie.

When will things "go back" like they once were? Probably never, but certainly not until America re-institutes high income tax rates for astronomical personal incomes AND increases the capital gains tax.

"But low taxes creates jobs", they say. No, they don't. Low taxes helps your corporations make decisions to send your jobs overseas. Plenty of them went bye-bye, never to return. Wanna save the rest?

Muser of NM 2:47PM June 18, 2009

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