Happy to be laid-off by Boeing

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in September 2009 the average amount of time a laid-off worker spends unemployed was a staggering 6.5 months.

Would it surprise you to learn that survivors can suffer just as much, if not more, than colleagues who get laid off? 

But despite the hardships of long-term unemployment, many people find the time off a pleasant surprise and take advantage of the lax schedule between job-hunting activities.  Out-of-work professionals have found themselves using their free time for everything from family bonding and reconnecting with old friends to spending more time at the gym.

A team of academic researchers who embedded themselves at Boeing from 1996 to 2006, a tumultuous decade during which the company laid off tens of thousands, were surprised when interviewing and testing 3,500 Boeing employees--from line workers to senior executives.  However, they shouldn't have been surprised if they knew the corporate culture.  For when I was working as a vendor to Boeing in the late 1960s through 1972, another difficult time for the company, employees were afraid to take vacations because their office might be cleaned out prior to their return to work--a clear signal that they had been laid off.

The results of the 1996-2006 study will appear next year in a Yale University Press book called Turbulence: Boeing and the State of American Workers and Managers.  "How much better off the laid-off were was stunning and shocking to us," says Sarah Moore, a University of Puget Sound industrial psychology professor who is one of the book's four authors.

In the greatest surprise of all, the researchers discovered that the people who had been laid off often were happier than those left behind.  Many had new jobs, even if they didn't always pay as well.  Over and over, Moore says, average depression scores were nearly twice as great for those who stayed with Boeing vs. those who left.

The researchers say that thanks to the unceasing uncertainty inside Boeing, those who left felt as though they had escaped a bad marriage.  At the time, one Boeing employee told researchers: "You feel better when someone takes their foot off your neck."

Sources: BUSINESSWEEK, November 2, 2009 and The Wall Street Journal, October 27, 2009