The last we time we were the bearer of bad news from a Watson Wyatt survey, 23% of companies were planning more layoffs. That percentage is way down: 13% of companies are now expecting to make layoffs.
That’s partly because a lot of companies have already cut. In December, 39% of companies said they’d already done layoffs; now, 52% say so.
Meanwhile, the percentage of the 245 large U.S. companies surveyed last week that say they froze salaries more than tripled from the December survey to this one.
|
HR program |
Already made change |
Expecting to make change |
||||
|
Feb 2009 |
Dec 2008 |
Oct 2008 |
Feb 2009 |
Dec 2008 |
Oct 2008 |
|
|
Add/increase restrictions to company travel policy |
69% |
48% |
34% |
10% |
16% |
21% |
|
Hiring freeze |
56% |
47% |
30% |
10% |
18% |
25% |
|
Layoffs/reduction in force |
52% |
39% |
19% |
13% |
23% |
26% |
|
Eliminate or reduce the hiring of seasonal workers |
44% |
28% |
17% |
9% |
16% |
18% |
|
Salary freeze |
42% |
13% |
4% |
14% |
19% |
12% |
|
Eliminate or reduce training programs |
35% |
23% |
10% |
15% |
18% |
18% |
|
Organization-wide restructuring |
31% |
23% |
14% |
20% |
21% |
23% |
|
Increase communication to employees about their benefits |
31% |
32% |
35% |
27% |
35% |
35% |
|
Increase communication to employees about their pay |
28% |
16% |
18% |
31% |
43% |
37% |
|
HR function restructuring |
23% |
14% |
15% |
22% |
21% |
19% |
|
Reduce/eliminate other employee programs (tuition reimbursement, subsidized dining facilities, etc.) |
23% |
12% |
8% |
18% |
12% |
11% |
|
Raise percentage that employees pay for health care premiums |
22% |
20% |
21% |
24% |
17% |
25% |
|
Reduced workweek |
13% |
2% |
4% |
8% |
6% |
4% |
|
Reduce employer 401(k)/403(b) match |
12% |
3% |
2% |
12% |
7% |
4% |
|
Salary reductions |
7% |
5% |
2% |
4% |
6% |
4% |
|
Early retirement window |
6% |
3% |
4% |
6% |
6% |
5% |
1 comment
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Virginia Backaitis Mar 2, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Greetings,
I wrote an article for the NY Post about how companies are cutting employee-related costs without layoffs. You can find it here http://tinyurl.com/d42edk
Enjoy!