Downsizing

Do you fear something awful is around the corner when it comes to your finances? Given recent years' economic woes, it's not unreasonable. But you can turn your worries to your advantage by planning for the worst before anything goes wrong.

I recently penned a column pointing out that when America "lost" the TV manufacturing industry to Japan, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, because the business has become a low-margin money loser. A lot of readers disagreed.

No matter when a person gets laid off, it can have long-lasting financial consequences -- among them, a wage gap that persists for years. But a new study reveals that men who are part of a mass layoff during a recession lose 72% more over their lifetimes than men who lose jobs in during periods of economic growth.

Corporate executives stick to a script when pulling the layoff lever: Cite the tough economic landscape, promise that employees will remain the firm's most valued asset, insist that there was no other option to protect the company's future. Here's why you shouldn't buy what corporate America's selling when it comes to life-ruining layoffs.

Wall Street will watch second quarter earnings for telltale signs that the economy has slowed or that corporate margins are even tighter than is feared. But the ones reporting negative outlooks are likely to go back to the same old solution they used so often in recent years: layoffs.

In part one of this three-part series on retirement savings, we reviewed how to best manage a 401(k). But as today's companies continue to combat the tough economy by downsizing, part two explores what to do with your employer-offered retirement plan if you lose your job.

Massive layoffs were both a cause and a symptom of the recent recession, but job creation began to revive late last year. Unfortunately, in May, the U.S. added only 58,000 jobs, and layoffs may be on the rise again. This time, they're taking a particular toll on state and local government workers.

The latest consumer sentiment index reading continues to show an American public that expects better days ahead, and fourth quarter GDP growth indicates a strengthening economy. But countervailing pressures remain: Initial jobless claims unexpectedly rose, and gas prices are high.

Tech layoffs came to just under 47,000 last year, according to employment-services firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Better still, during the next 10 years, the sector is forecast to have one of the fastest paces of job creation of any industry.

You can't call layoffs downsizing anymore, and offshoring sounds just as bad to workers as "shipping your jobs to Asia." What to do? Come up with better buzzwords, of course. And who could object to something so "right" as rightsizing or rightshoring?