Companies force workers to take unpaid vacation (temporarily laid off workers hit a 17-year high)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hp_uSBAh9dkX9v0QlN0x5aYIYzCAD95DBAUG0

By ELLEN SIMON –

NEW YORK (AP) — Here's the vacation no one wants, courtesy of the recession: Forced time off without pay.

Financially struggling universities, factories and even hospitals are requiring employees to take unpaid "furloughs" — temporary layoffs that amount to one-time pay cuts for workers and a cost savings for employers. This year, the number of temporarily laid off workers hit a 17-year high.

"If they do it once, I think it's easier for them to try to do it again," said Carrie Swartout, who researches traumatic brain injuries at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Maryland is requiring unpaid time off for 67,000 of its 80,000 employees as it struggles with a budget crisis. The state says the furloughs will save an estimated $34 million during the fiscal year.

State governments, facing lower revenues but stymied by the long process required to cut public sector jobs, are using furloughs as a quick way to trim payrolls. Private-sector businesses — from automakers to small businesses — are shutting down factories and offices as sales drop.

The temporary layoffs are "kind of employment purgatory, but it's better than the alternative," said Carl Van Horn, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University. They're a typical response to decreasing demand in a recession, although this round is slightly worse than past bad recessions, Van Horn said.

Of 10.3 million unemployed workers in November, roughly 12 percent were unemployed because of temporary layoffs, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The last time this many workers fell into the category was February 1991, when 1.4 million workers were unemployed because of temporary layoffs. As a proportion of the total work force, workers on temporary layoff are roughly 1 percent, nearly the same now as 17 years ago.

FULL story at link.