The new economic environment: A strategic workforce perspective

Recent events in the financial markets have pushed the global economy deeper into an economic slowdown. As companies around the world have lost significant market valuation, they are revisiting their growth projections and bracing themselves against a worsening outlook. Already we are seeing a noted increase in the U.S. unemployment rate to 6.5 percent in October 2008, with more than 1,000,000 jobs lost during the year.1 The U.S. financial services industry has been significantly impacted by this turmoil and has, according to the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., lost over 102,000 jobs in the first nine months of 2008.2 Similarly, the unemployment rate in the United Kingdom rose in the second quarter of 2008 by .4 percent to 5.8 percent, with over 164,000 individuals displaced between June and September.3