Yesterday's main Gleaner headline is certain to have caused a collective shiver of apprehension throughout the mass of employees in this country. It announced 'Jobs under threat', this coming as the global financial slowdown is rippling outwards, from the metropoles of commerce, towards us who import much more than we export.

Labour Minister Pearnel Charles said several companies have indicated that they intend to send home hundreds, and maybe thousands, of employees in the coming months.

We know, of course, that whatever its organisational culture, a business enterprise is just that - a business, and those who run it can ill afford sustained losses. And, while it would be good if few people, if any, were to see their source of income dry up, even as the cost of living skyrockets, we must be realistic. We must acknowledge that bleeding a company to death, to keep it going during strained financial times, will only result in even more persons losing their jobs in the long run, as the entity closes entirely instead of reducing its staff complement.

However, from the workers' point of view, it must seem extremely unfair that when profits are up their wages are seldom adjusted to reflect the company's prosperity, except, of course, in accordance with negotiated labour contracts. And, more often than not, they have to wait until the end of the year to see some direct results from their productive efforts in the form of a bonus.

explore possible options

So, losses tend to have an impact on workers much more quickly and directly than profits and, as the financial meltdown looms large, along with Jamaica's burgeoning crime problem, we urge those companies, which can do so, to explore all possible options before taking the slash- and-dismiss route.

We are not, of course, making a direct link between job loss and crime, as we suspect that those who work are often those who would never consider finding themselves jobless as an excuse for theft and violence. And, we suspect, also, that among the perennially unemployed are those who can use any ordinary or extraordinary occurrence to justify their viciousness in preying on those who work hard.

However, there is a difference between sadness at losing a job and bitterness at being treated unfairly and we would not wish to have a mass of the bitter unemployed in a society already creaking under the combined weight of malaise, limited opportunities and the exposure of a small economy to financial tempests. Often, it is these hard-working persons in a community or household, who provide a vital counterbalance to the apathetic among us, or even those averse to enterprise and tending towards socially destructive behaviour.

So, even as we acknowledge the gloomy economic realities, we urge the companies considering redundancies to do all they can to delay or cushion the crushing blow of mass job losses. We simply cannot dictate that employees take the full brunt of losses without expecting what may, in the long run, be lasting and corrosive bitterness.

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