Furloughs hit private sector
Soon many state and county offices will be temporarily closed as employees take unpaid leave. But it's not just local governments adopting furloughs to cut costs. Sam Eaton reports.
Empty office space (iStockPhoto)
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TEXT OF STORY
Kai Ryssdal: Forget casual Fridays. The new recession trend is furlough Fridays. Tomorrow state, county and city offices from Connecticut to Seattle are going to be shut down temporarily as employees are forced to take unpaid leave. And Marketplace's Sam Eaton reports government workers aren't the only ones.
SAM EATON: In the white-collar world this form of temporary leave without pay has been largely absent. Until now. Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld is an employment expert at the University of Illinois. He says in a global, knowledge-based economy layoffs are now seen as a last resort.
JOEL CUTCHER-GERSHENFELD: Knowledge and skills that employers have invested in are more valuable than ever. And so if there's a way to retain talent rather than lay it off employers will prefer that to retain their investments.
It also positions companies to respond quickly once the economy recovers. Universities, high-tech firms and publishing companies, among others are embracing the furlough as a way to cut costs without cutting staff. But employment lawyer Robert Duston says there is a downside.
ROBERT DUSTON: Some of those people who are being furloughed, if you do it across the board, could be extremely productive.
But he says that's the nature of furloughs. The idea is to spread the pain evenly across the entire company.
I'm Sam Eaton for Marketplace.
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From San Diego, CA, 05/23/2009
With all the money being tossed around these days, I hope somebody at the top takes a second look at the green building industry.
The green building industry isn’t what your father might think it is. Gone are the long haired, wide eyed idealists who thumbed their noses at the local building inspectors to install something that may or may not have worked for long. Those guys paid their dues and their prodigies are now installing fifth, sixth, or maybe tenth generation technologies into some of the nicest homes in America.
Ask any billionaire to describe his new house and you’ll get the same response - it’s green. It doesn’t matter which side of the political aisle they’re on, they want the nicest, the healthiest, the coolest, the best, and that’s what green means nowadays. In a country known for its pursuit of the nicest, the healthiest, the coolest, the best, green building is serious business by anyone’s standards.
No segment of the American economy has been hurt worse than the housing industry. Just do a brief study of any unemployment data and you’ll see that construction workers have borne the brunt of this housing collapse and economic tanking. Nobody ever blamed construction workers for giving no-down loans to unqualified home buyers. Yet, every analysis shows that they have been hit the hardest from such unprecedented banking practices.
But where is the bailout money flowing? To the same group of spoiled MBA wonder boys who put them and many like them on the streets. We should take a lesson from China, where they decided to put their money into the guys who actually produce something of value, and who won’t be spending their gain in Europe’s finest hotels.
That electrician in line for a job would be tickled pink to have a shot at a little training on installing solar panels. That plumber sitting down at the union hall waiting for “the” phone call would be more than happy to learn how to install greywater irrigation systems. There is a green version of every aspect of home construction that just requires a little more education. Those green jobs are already their careers in the future. A little bailout money there would go a long ways.
Put our home builders straight to work, and you really create a sustainable economy.
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