The Human Resource Implications of Plant Shutdowns

ment Transition Program. She received her Ph. D. in economic history from the University of Michigan. Her recent research addresses early retirement, plant shutdowns, and permanent job loss. Her publications include Plant Closings and Economic Dislocation (1981), with Paul Jarley and Louis A. Ferman, and, for the U. S. Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, Economic Change, Physical Illness, Mental Illness, and Social Deviance (1984), with Sean McAlinden. ABSTRACT: Human resource programs that were developed to serve those displaced by plant closings have been fragmented. Participation rates have been low in placement, job search assistance, relocation, and retraining programs, and results have not been particularly positive. Great emphasis was placed upon serving those in need when programs did develop. The fragmentation characteristic of previous policy—or nonpolicy— seems to have undergone considerable organization and rationalization with the advent of the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) and the association of several major labor-management displaced worker programs with the federal-state program. This change tends to emphasize placement and to focus upon training exclusively. As a result, not only will disadvantaged workers compete with displaced workers for training