The news today that layoffs are increasing at an alarming rate is not good news for jobseekers, or the economy. Key quote:

For the past three months, American companies have been cutting their workforce in increasing numbers, according to a new report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement consultancy group in Chicago. In July, the number of planned job cuts surged to a 16-month high of 66,414 — a 60 percent increase from June.

So, I thought this would be a good time to repost a series I did back in 2007 when this blog (and the financial crisis) was in it’s infancy:

Click through to read the entire series.

How To Save Your Job

• The Weatherman Technique
• The Lifeboat Technique
• The Late Surge Technique
• The Ninja Technique
• The Zen Technique

Additionally, here are a couple of articles I did that you might also find useful.

Want to know how to read the tea leaves and determine ahead of time if layoffs are likely? Try 8 Sure Signs Layoffs Are Coming.

Finally, what do you do if you survive a round of layoffs?

Related posts:

1. How To Save Your Job From Layoffs
2. How To Save Your Job Strategy Summary
3. New Series This Week: How To Save Your Job.

Generally, a severance package is made up of pay and benefits given by an employer to a dismissed employee. But contrary to some belief, a severance package is not given as an entitlement prescribed by law, rather it is an employer’s prerogative – which means this benefit is given as a token under the employer’s discretion.

While some companies may offer packages to departing employees, other companies offer nothing at all. Hence, severance packages may also vary in content. In any case, a severance package usually contains benefits meant to help an employee. In some instances, some employees even consult with lawyers to be able to negotiate for a better severance package.

In addition to the employee’s remaining regular pay, a severance package may also include some of the following benefits:

• Medical, dental or life insurance
• Retirement benefits
• Payment for unused vacation time or sick leave
• A payment in lieu of a required notice period
• Stock options
• Assistance in searching for new work, such as access to employment services or help in producing a résumé
• An additional payment based on months of service

Typically, severance packages are offered to employees who are laid off or those who retire. In some cases, they may also be offered to people who resign, regardless of the circumstances, or are dismissed or fired.

Employees may find the rules and policies governing severance packages in a company’s employee handbook. These policies are often based on local employment statutes and federal law.

Most severance contracts stipulate that the employee will not sue the employer for wrongful termination or attempt to collect on unemployment insurance. Otherwise, if an employee has plans to take legal action against his employer regarding his dismissal, he must return the severance pay or refuse to accept it.

An employee who gets a severance package offer has two options: to take a lump sum severance payment, or opt for salary continuation payments. However, before taking any of these options, he must take into consideration the following facts:

• If an employee needs immediate funds, he can take the lump sum option.
• A salary continuation payment option is better if an employee needs a health insurance.
• If an employee does not qualify yet for pension or retirement benefits, salary continuation may be a good choice.
• An employee must also consider the tax consequences of investing his severance pay. Depending on his investment, the money may be taxed as income or its earnings may be tax-deferred. On the other hand, a salary continuation option has lower income tax rate.
• Severance payments may also disqualify you from unemployment benefits. Typically, if you are receiving severance payments in the form of salary continuation and those payments equal or exceed your previous weekly wages, it qualifies as income.

To an employer, offering a severance pay as part of the package of a terminated employee may also be a difficult decision. At times, he may have to decide about the scope and the amount of benefits he must give to a dismissed employee. Some companies however have adopted a standard in calculating an employee’s severance pay.

How much really should an employee receive as severance pay?

Severance pay is normally contingent on several things, which include but are not limited to the following factors:

• Existence of an employment contract – Severance terms are written into many employment contracts and benefits may depend on what is written in the contract.
• The cause of one’s termination
• Length of service – Severance typically ranges from no pay to one or two weeks of pay for each year of service, with pay capped at a certain number of months.
• Size of the organization – Larger companies generally offers more formalized severance packages.
• One’s position in the organization – Executive-level or senior employees normally get anywhere from six months to one year of pay while management-level employees get anywhere from three to six months. Nonexempt staff might get anywhere from no severance to 12 weeks’ pay.
• Private, public, or nonprofit sector – Severance packages vary greatly, depending on the type of organization.

This is a guest post. About the author:

By Manuel Salvacion. Visit our website to learn more about employment severance package. To pursue a claim, consult with our skilled employment attorneys.

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2. Where Are The Jobs In The Stimulus Package
3. Should You Accept a Low-Paying Job Offer or Stick With Unemployment Benefits?

Americans’ Online Search Behavior Points to Significant Increase in Personal Financial Turmoil.

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I originally published this post series more than a year ago, when this blog was very young. It occurred to me that these post have even more relevance today. Click through to read the entire series.

How To Save Your Job

• “The Weatherman Technique”
• “The Lifeboat Technique“
• “The Late Surge Technique“
• “The Ninja Technique“
• “The Zen Technique“

Related posts:

1. New Series This Week: How To Save Your Job.
2. How To Save Your Job Strategy Summary
3. How To Save Your Job From A Recession

Layoffs are coming fast and furious. The employees of Citigroup got absolutely clobbered today.

Who survives when jobs are on the chopping block? Let me use a car salesman(person) analogy here.

Let’s imagine you are the owner of a car dealership. A recession is in full swing. No one is buying cars. (And let’s leave aside the notion that your supplier of cars might be bankrupt by the new year.)

Ok, Mr. Owner, your workforce is largely salespersons, with the occasional accountant, secretary and a few management types.

Times are going to be tough for the foreseeable future. You’re gonna have to cut some people. But the question is, who is safe? Who are the people you are absolutely going to keep on the job?

They fall into 3 categories:

1) The Superstar Earner
In lean times, you’re not gonna kill the golden geese. In fact, you’re going to lean on them all the more to get you through the badness. You’re going to encourage them, pamper them, maybe even offer them raises because you know how valuable to you they are right now.
2) The Innovator
Maybe in this tough time what your business needs to do is think outside the box. If plugging away at what you’ve always done no longer gets results, then it’s time to try new things. As the owner, you’re going to keep around the folks with ideas. You’re going to maybe give a chance to those people that have crazy new ways of doing business, new contacts, new ways of branching out and making money.
3) The Cost Cutter
Maybe now is NOT the time you fire the secretary and answer the phones yourself. Right now, you’re trimming costs, right? That’s why you’re laying people off to begin with. But if you can identify employees who know how to trim the fat, it would pay you to keep them on. So if that secretary is good at trimming office supply costs, finding a new, cheaper phone system, or negotiating better advertising rates, you’d be a fool to fire her.

What is the overall lesson here?

If your job is on the line, you want to identify yourself as one of these three key types of people. It might not make your job 100% secure, but it does increase your chances of being safe if your boss can brand you as the type of worker that will help him survive the rough patch and keep his or her own job.

PS, further thought: If you’re trying to get hired during these tough times, it would also behoove you to try to convince the hiring manager that you have some of these three qualities. The only people likely to be hired right now are people that can help an organization rise out of the tough times quicker. They don’t care how you do it… make more money, find new ways of making money, or save money. But if bringing you on can accomplish some of those three things, you’d be surprised the job opportunities that open up.

Related posts:

1. What To Do If You Survive Layoffs
2. The Euphemistic Language of Layoffs
3. 8 Sure Signs Layoffs Are Coming

As I promised last week, it’s time to take a step back and assess where we’re at.

You may have noticed that things have been crazy and scary in our economy recently. The good news is that hopefully Hank, over there to the right, might finally have landed on a mixture of fixes that will keep the banks alive.

The bad news is, the recession is still neigh, and we’re only in the early innings. There are going to be more layoffs and the job market is going to get worse – much worse – before it gets better.

I started this blog almost a year ago because we were just beginning to see the signs that things were getting bad. I wanted to have a venue to get some helpful advice out there. Last year, it was just the mortgage brokers. Then it was the construction industry. Then it was the banking industry. Now it’s almost everyone.

So here’s a quick summary post of “what you should do now” using some of my earlier posts as touchstones.

1) Do you have a job? Good. Hold on to it.

If you have a job that’s reasonably secure, then now is not the time to get adventurous. Try to hold on to it for dear life. A job in hand is worth anything you might be able to find in the bush in these circumstances.

And the best advice I can offer you now if you think your job is probably safe: take out insurance anyway. Set up a rainy day fund just in case your guess is wrong. (Original post here)

2) Is your job in trouble? Be proactive.

Get your butt in gear now. I wrote a comprehensive 5-post series about how to a) detect if layoffs are coming and b) try to position yourself in such a way that you can be one of the survivors. (Original post here with links to the 5 post series)

Also, I have 8 sure signs that your company is in trouble and thus your job might be on the line. (Original post here)

3) If you find yourself job searching, remember, it WILL happen eventually.

I’m not gonna lie. It’s going to be tough out there. You’re going to send your resume out dozens of times and hear nothing back. You’re going to be competing with dozens of people for each open position. And you might have to go through 8 interviews before you finally make the right impression.

Job searching during a recession is a difficult task. But there are some helpful tips I can pass along. (Original post here).

And finally, a reminder that tomorrow will be another day. Things won’t stay bad forever.

And downturns are often a time of opportunity. It’s not doom and gloom everywhere, as this post reminds you: (Original post here). A quick excerpt from that last post:

We founded ResumeWriters.com at the height of the dot com bubble. And so we were there for the nuclear winter when the bubble burst. At one point, fully 1/3 of our clients were out of work techies.

Some of them got out of tech and moved on to another career path.

But I can say this with certainty: the tech folks that stuck with their career path are now doing very well. And the two clients we helped get hired at Google in early 2003? They’re multimillionaires now. Even in a nuclear winter, there are opportunities for the future; somewhere out there, good people are hiring.

Related posts:

1. In Career Planning, Follow Your Heart, Not The Ebb And Flow Of The Economy Or Job Market
2. Ask Brian – State of the Job Market
3. Job Search In a Tough Job Market

We’ve spoken in the past about strategies you can employ to anticipate and avoid layoffs.

But what happens if you survive a round of layoffs? What should you do if you look around and you’re one of the last men standing?

Here are some quick tips:

Figure Out The Company Game Plan, and Get On Board

If you’ve just survived a round of layoffs, that can only mean your company is in tough times. Chances are there is a turnaround plan in place, designed to get your corporate ship sailing again. Learn the plan. Be the plan. Position yourself organizationally and politically to be a key team member, implementing this plan. A good way to ensure your continued employment is to make yourself an invaluable part of the turnaround.

Make a Game Plan

If you find yourself in a position where the future is unclear, then make a game plan for yourself. Don’t wait for corporate to get their act together. You need to plan for your own future. Figure out the conditions you’re willing to continue under and which things might make you jump ship. Don’t be shy. Go to your boss and ask them how they see the future working out.

Choose a Patron

Is there a new regime in town? A new boss? A turnaround artist? Waste no time getting in the good graces of your new corporate overlords. But choose wisely! Turnaround plans can come and go like the wind, especially if your company is flailing around, looking for direction. Don’t tie yourself too closely to a wobbly new regime. You want to be with the winners, long term.

Take Advantage of Everyone Else’s Misfortune

Look. You’re a survivor. This is no time for sentimentality. There’s no better time to rise up and advance your career than after a bloodletting. You can take on tasks, fill the shoes of the recently departed, and generally consolidate your career position. Be ruthless and deliver results so the company will be glad they kept you around.

Don’t Get Smug

So you survived one round of layoffs. That doesn’t mean more rounds are impossible. Keep your eyes and your options open. Keep strong contacts with your existing network. And just as importantly:

Keep In Touch With Co-Workers Who Have Been Laid Off

As your former cubicle-mates scatter to the wind, one by one they’ll find dry land with other companies and jobs. If you stay in touch and in their good graces, they could be there to throw you a lifeline if you yourself need a new job in the coming months.

Related posts:

1. How To Know If Layoffs Are Coming – And What To Do About It
2. Yahoo Layoffs Update
3. Who Survives Layoffs

Dear Banks:

Stop failing. Or, at least, stop failing all at once. We at ResumeWriters.com legitimately cannot handle all the people you are sending our way. Or, at least, we can’t handle them all at once.

Worst case scenario: if you keep flooding us with people-in-need-of-resumes, I might not get back to blogging for a while.

So, stop it.

Sincerely, TheJobBored.

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On the road, unfortunately, so this will be my first attempt to put a post up entirely from my iPhone.

We’ll see if the picture actually formats correctly…

Anyway, today’s Wall Street events reminded me to remind you of some sound advice I gave a long time ago:

The stock market can give you early warning that your job is in trouble. I’m not just saying check your company stock… clearly, if your company, like Lehman, goes totally belly up, yeah, your job is toast.

I’m saying, keeping an eye on the market in general. If you paid attention at all this summer, you knew that the banking industry was in trouble. Bank stocks have been down as much as 90% this year. And last week’s 80-something percent drop in Lehman should have alerted all Lehman workers than things were dicey.

If you’re at a publicly traded company, the market can tell you things have turned sour even quicker than pink slips can be produced and cost cutting can begin. Hope I’m wrong, but look out WaMu and AIG folks!

Related posts:

1. Quick Job Search Tip- Use A Stock Screener To Find Out Who’s Hiring
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Up here in Michigan, the summer of our discontent seems to go on and on and on. It’s well known that this region has been struggling with with what experts like to euphemistically call an “economic transition” for several generations now. But this year, with the US automotive industry teetering literally on the edge of oblivion, people up here are more nervous than ever.

I was speaking with a friend this weekend who works for an auto-related company. I asked him if he was nervous about his own job and the prospects for his own company. Indeed, he was:

“We have meetings all the time now. Almost every day. Tons of meetings are a bad sign for any company.”

We talked about it some and I agreed that he was right. A rash of meetings is bad news.

“It’s a sign management is flailing,” my friend said. “They’re out of ideas. And they’re out of ideas for finding new ideas. So they keep calling meeting after meeting in the hope that a good idea will magically show up.”

We got to talking more and came up with this list of additional signs your company is struggling and your job might not be safe from layoffs:

• They bring in the consultants. Never a good sign. A swarm of consultants descending on your operations is another admission by management that they’re out of ideas.
• The bigwigs above you start to lose their jobs. I mentioned I had written a post about that just this week.
• Your company moves to new, smaller office space. Cost cutting starts here. The next step is eliminating positions.
• Divisions, teams or offices are consolidated. Consolidation means only one thing: they’re cutting costs by eliminating redundancies. Why have three people do a job when one person can be made to do it? You job could be one of those redundancies.
• Travel expenses are cut. Things are really bad if a travel moratorium is introduced.
• You are asked to take a pay cut. This is literally management saying to you: please pay for your own stay of execution.
• Extra security it brought in. This is usually a sign that the end times are positively neigh. When layoffs are imminent, companies not only hire extra security, my friend pointed out that they often try to bring in new security folk or outside help. This way you will be escorted out of your office by someone you don’t know, as opposed to your old, reliable security guard that you might have become friendly with over the years, and who would likely look the other way as you absconded with your (the company’s) stapler.

Related posts:

1. How To Save Your Job- How To Know When Layoffs Are Coming
2. How To Know If Layoffs Are Coming – And What To Do About It
3. Yahoo Layoffs Update