What is happening now is really hard. Often a company will periodically 'clean house' of the lower performers. That doesn't mean these folks are necessarily not good employees. Jack Welch of GE had this philosophy to move out the lowest 10% every year. His goal was to eventually only have the top 10-20% of the world working for him. Nice theory for the business, poor for employees.
This time the companies are pretty much forced to address the downturn in the economy. Its tough deciding who goes, unless in a union where seniority rules. The staff is fully qualified and all good people. Individual companies and individual managers use different guidelines in making the decisions.
(1) Highest paid go first
(2) Near top of their career, more growth unlikely,
(3) Illegal, but single without dependents
(4) Youth with time to recover and easier time finding next position
(5) If there is a company severance package policy, sometimes those that would get the most (have the best chace of finding something before it runs out), sometimes those that would get the least, (save the company money).
(6) The worst situation is when an individual manager exercises his/her bias against a particular class, race, ethnic background, genderm competition, personality conflict.
It is tough for whomever gets the notice. Sometimes hard onthe survivors, but not near as hard as it is on the victim/
