Doug,
I'd like to second Michael Perelman's point about tenure and downsizing.
This would be especially true in large companies which are more likely
to be unionized.
A lot of the increase in total tenure comes from changes in the pattern
of women's labor force participation - women are less likely to withdraw
from the labor force when they get married or have kids. Peter Cappelli
(Rethinking Employment, British Journal of Industrial Relations (vol 33,
#4 1995) reviewed several studies on tenure and concluded that tenure
was declining for men, particularly older white men and poorly educated
men.
The workforce is aging, so more people have the potential for long
tenure, but they are also pushing retirement, so the tenure picture will
probably change rapidly in the next several years. Maybe the current
tightness in the labor market will forestall some cuts, but outside of
academia, early retirement is growing as an alternative to layoffs and
the Baby Boom is getting up there.
GE-Appliance Park in Louisville, my old hangout, is undergoing another
round of threatened job cuts, announced a few months ago. The union
came back with a counterproposal, and as far as I know that's where
things stand. GE wants to shut down production of kitchen ranges and
clothes dryers in Louisville and move it to a plant in Mexico and the
former Roper plant (in Georgia, I think) that they bought several years
ago. The number of jobs GE wants to eliminate is pretty close to the
number of people eligible for early retirement in the next few years.
What you have at GE in Louisville is a cohort hired in the late 1960s
nearing early retirement eligibility; my cohort which hired in in the
early-mid 1970s who were in and out of there like yo-yos during the
1970s and 1980s. When I left Louisville in 1991, my adjusted seniority
was 10 years (according to the formula GE has for adjusting benefits for
time laid off), but I had started there in 1974 and would have had 17 if
I hadn't been laid off.
The workers in my cohort, a fairly large group - got called back quickly
in 1991 (before losing seniority under the GE formula), and have worked
steadily since. So they have 17 years in adjusted seniority, 24 years
since first hiring in, but 9.5 years of (relatively) continuous
employment, because we were called back in late 1988 after being laid
off in 1984. I'm sure that when studies are done, care is taken to
specify the appropriate definition of tenure, but which is it?
NO ONE was hired in production in the 1980s at Appliance Park. There
has been hiring in the 1990s to replace retirees, but they have been in
and out like we were. The total number of jobs has dropped because of
sourcing and technology changes, and is likely to drop further when
these latest cuts go through. So you a group of people with 30 or so
years of steady employment and nearing retirement; a group with some
mid-range of involvement with GE but variable lengths of actual
employment; and a group with just few years of employment (also broken
by layoffs.)
------Laurie
Laurie Dougherty
Global Development and
Environment Institute
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155
http://www.tufts.edu/gdae
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
