What was that I heard?

How often have you heard friends say that their company may be laying off people? There was a time when the job market was an employee market in many sectors.

The dot com boom of the late 90′s and early 2000′s had entrepreneurs scrambling for talent and those who wanted to ride a new experience to what they envisioned a new and great opportunity. We all hear about those start up companies where someone had a vision, had the ability to raise capital and hire employees, and had a product or service to offer an eager audience. Even though opportunities are still there, they have to be thought out carefully.

Today it appears that this is an employer market. No longer does an employer hire on a whim or just hire a ‘body’. With the country’s economic woes, it seems that wherever you turn or who you talk to, someone is being laid off or there is the threat of company re-organization. No longer do we have the job security that our parents experienced. We need to deal with reality, cope with the possibility of layoff, and plan our future. We are the only ones who can determine our future – or are we?

Photo courtesy Flickr by Vic Lic