One of the big challenges right now in the USA is the sheer speed and scale in which large corporations are responding to the economic downturn by laying off workers. AT&T was the latest large employer to announce over 14,000 layoffs yesterday, but that is just one example.
For a publicly-quoted corporation, it is a sad fact of life that markets generally approve of firings more than hirings. You can be sure that if AT&T leadership, instead of announcing 14,400 layoffs, had instead issued a statement along the lines of "we're not laying off any employees because they are our most valuable asset" the stock price would have dropped like a stone as the marketplace concluded that they were "not serious" about cutting costs.
Underlying AT&T's decision is a conventional wisdom that has the potential to drag the USA into a spiral of deflation. Laid-off employees stop spending, and if they have debts, some of their debt-financed assets may be repossessed, which will further depress asset values...you can see where this is headed. The inflationary pressure of the Federal Reserve expanding the money supply may be swamped by the deflationary pressure of nobody spending any money on anything except essentials.
Exploring that issue is for another time, another place. The whole cascade of bad news about job losses was thrown into sharp relief for me by this Fast Company article about Cisco, which has bucked the marketplace trend by announcing that it does not intend to lay off employees. The article makes it clear that the "no layoffs" pledge is an integral consequence of a leadership strategy which is about 180 degrees removed from the "command and control" strategy that some corporations still operate under (and which many corporations revert to in times of stress).
This begs the wider question of how many corporations operate like Cisco. The consultancy WordBlu, which helps corporations to transition to a more democratic leadership style, is beginning to compile a list of corporations that have embraced stewardship as a model instead of some form of benevolent dictatorship, which is the model that I see returning right now in the USA, as corporations react to adversity by firing their "most important assets" by the thousand. (NOTE to corporate leaders - if employers regard employees as expendable when there is a downturn, do not be surprised if your employees regard their employers as expendable in an upturn. Paybacks can be hell...).
UPDATE - Commenter mook makes the point that corporations usually announce layoffs with a fanfare, while most hiring is relatively stealthy. This may be true some of the time, but it is not true all of the time. Many US corporations (including my employer) have for a long time been laying off employees in small numbers at frequent intervals, in order to not have to conform to the requirements of the WARN Act. At least as many employees have been let go stealthily by that approach as have been laid off in publicly announced layoffs. The other thing I would note is that the very act of not announcing hirings tends to support my basic point - corporations get more brownie points from the marketplace by being seen to be cutting costs via firing than they gain by announcing that they are hiring. It is almost like hiring is a source of shame, but firing is a source of pride. If true, this really tells you a lot about a fundamental dysfunctionality of modern corporate America.