What Lay-offs?

Every day I read the news online I am bombarded with headlines that read "x" company has laid off "y" amount of employees. As an upcoming college graduate the reality of our economic climate becomes more frightful with every headline. While I was perusing through CNN.com, I came across an article that gave me hope that not every business is throwing their employees overboard.

Forbes released this article. Which is 9 companies and retailers that have never had to lay-off employees.
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0901/gallery.no_layoffs.fortune/index.html

Many of these companies have great strategies that recruit and create great talent, maintain fiscal responsibility, and have low employee turnover that doesn't flood the company with high labor costs.

There are some smart strategies that are mentioned in this article, ones that caught my attention was Nugget Market's use of versatile employees and meeting fluctuating labor needs with the use of college students on break for their seasonal increase in business.
I also respect Aflac's motto that "If we take care of our employees, the employees take care of the business." I feel that employers loose sight of this, and are only focused on their shareholders or their profit.

Its a quick read that puts a little optimism in your heart and a some relevant retail and business strategies in your artillery

In the Year 4076

Happy New Years.... China. It is begining of the year of the Ox and according to the Chinese Calendar it is the year 4076. The Chinese years is a time of Celebration for the entire country; it can be the seldom time of the year that many industrial workers recieve a vacation. Although its time for celebration in the country of china, there thought of economic woes in the mind of the chinese people. http://www.wwd.com/business-news/chinas-consumers-scale-back-1947253?module=today. The article points at how the recession is affecting not only the us economy but also china and its consumers. This crisis is very scary, and it makes the job market even smaller and smaller. I feel like even with all my experience and the education I have recieved i still wont be able to land a job. Although I am skeptical of Obama's recovery plan actually working, I feel there are no other options. I do agree that recovery needs to begin soon, but this recession is unlike any other. It is driven by consumer's lack of confidence. In an economhy that thrives on the flow of money, it will be hard to see how we will recover.