Recession...blah, blah, blah

I'll admit it: I've got recession fatigue. The world is like oatmeal, offering drearily homogenous news, honeyed platitudes, and bland advice that's supposed to be good for you. Have you noticed that job search articles are getting sillier? I mean, do people really need to be reminded not to offer up references who won't say good things about you?

And so the bad news keeps trickling in and our days are rocked with the underlying thrum of anxiety. Vault's Stephanie Myers recently wrote a piece for CNBC noting that even if you are still employed, life in workplace limbo is no one's idea of heaven--waiting for the axe to fall can be hell.

Luckily, the AP wants to reassure you that "Layoffs are not an option for some businesses":

""When you have talent that is really special, and you know what you got -- it would be costly to let them go," said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics...Economists say unemployment, now at 8.5 percent nationwide, could climb above 10 percent by year's end. Some economists say the labor market may not return to normal, meaning a jobless rate of about 5 percent, until 2013...And once the economy rebounds, companies that didn't slash payrolls could emerge with an edge..."You don't want to lay off 15 percent of your work force, because you want to be prepared to move quickly when the economy turns around, and that will obstruct your ability to do so," said Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal-leaning Center For Economic Policy and Research."

Well that's cool. Let's hope more companies come around to this way of thinking, and are actually able to follow through.

--Posted by Linda Petock, Vault News & Commentary