As if we haven’t endured enough in the United States, with the already perpetual drive to reduce the professional workforce to day laborers, we now have the crown jewel of stingy staffing known as “Crowd Sourcing”. In essence, firms will terminate the bulk of their employees and re-enlist them as independent contractors. In so doing, they wipe away their obligation to pay any sort of benefits and hire the workers only on as needed basis. Any contract attorney that has been sent home when the “docs ran out” knows the humiliation of this type of staffing.
Over At Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis there is an excellent discussion of this new trend, citing IBM as an example. There is also a post from a former Intel employee, who lead the development of their outsourcing policy who was recently terminated and – you guessed it – outsourced. At least he got what he deserved!
Also, there are some posts in Mish’s Forum that are worth reading.