Productivity is up, so why would employers hire more people?

[SoCalDem]

If you run a business and have 50 employees who are getting the job done, would you hire 10 more people, if you're are having a hard time selling the goods that 50 people produce now?

Once you are used to having those 50 people work really hard, and accept pay cuts, and losses of benefits, will company morale suffer if you hire 10 new people, instead of giving back to the employees you already have, their lost wages & benefits?

How can you get more people to buy more "stuff"?
If you are barely hanging on, will more advertising convince people to buy your product?

It's a lot "easier" to unwind a business than it is to re-build it.

[Mugweed]

1. I was thinking the same thing this morning.

And yesterday, the day before, and the day before. I didn't think about it on the weekend because I wasn't working. It's usually around 6AM on weekdays when I am sitting at my desk to start the day that I get to think about it. Why should my employers hire back four of my professional staff and my only administrative assistant/accountant/marketing coordinator if the two professionals left (me and my "staff") are getting the job done at 18% pay cuts? Why should they care if I have to work from 6AM to 6PM just to get the work done, yet only get paid for 40 hours per week at 82% percent of the salary I was getting this time last year? It's not like I'm jumping ship any time soon. All the other ships have sunk and we're one of the few still floating.

At least I can take a short break for lunch and rant a little.

[SoCalDem]

3. I hear you.. My son is having to drive to SanDiego, and often has to stay over

When he was hired a year ago, he was told he would be hiring 4 people, and he would be supervising them..and their work would be local (Riverside-San Bernardino area)..within a month, the hiring freeze happened, but the work still had to get done. they consolidated his territory, and it meant that some days he has to drive upwards of 85 miles just to GET to work.. The main reason he took the job was because it was a 10 minute commute and the hours were 6-3PM.. M-F.. But with the economy the way it is, he just has to suck it up and hope things get better soon..

[CoffeeCat]

4. My husband is in the same boat...

He works in upper management for an internet-service provider. They were supposed to hire more people under
him, so he could manage and take care of the higher-level tech stuff. Then, the shineola hit the fan. Those
people were never hired. We took a 20 percent paycut, but he's doing the jobs of four people. He's about
ready to lose his mind.

The current economic climate has workers over a barrel. People are afraid of losing their jobs when jobs are so
scarce--so no one is going to complain about the long hours and work overload. Everyone is hanging on by their
fingernails.

This type of sweating-blood situation---doesn't make me want to run right out and buy a big-screen television, like
the media says we should all be doing.

Such.a.crock.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. Because that might work short term

But it won't work for very long, when your workers bolt for another opportunity because they're tired of working 12 hour days and hiring a new person won't be as efficient as keeping the ones you have. As the economy improves, those opportunities will start opening up again and the threat of employees bolting will be real. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. Hate to say it, but this is part of why jobs are a lagging indicator.

[orwell]

5. There is an alarming rise in sick days and employee stress...

...you can only squeeze the turnip for so long before efficiency drops.

[endless october]

6. because you should want people to be able to afford your product.

and because those ten overworked workers doing the jobs of 50 people won't do that forever. eventually, they're going to quit. then you get to train 50 new less productive workers to take their place.

pay now or pay later. i'd pick hiring more right now, because with so many workers are out there, you can save some green by hiring in this environment.

[SoCalDem]

7. 50 workers already..plans to hire 10 more to add to the workforce

not 10 doing the work of 50 :)

[cbdo2007]

8. Why would productivity be up if you had to lay off people?

That's the first rule of having a job is that if they lay off people, do the same amount of work as you did before. You dont want the boss to know how much work you can really accomplish when you're not on DU all day.

But like another poster said, jobs is a lagging economic indicator and companies won't start hiring again until after their books are back to normal and balanced again. In fact they may even wait for months after that to make sure it isn't a fluke and when their recovery is stable they'll hire more.

You are correct that restoring lost wages and benefits should be accomplished quickly, maybe not before they start hiring new people, but pretty quickly afterwards.