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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Monday, September 10, 2001

Pink slips don't mean you're gone for good

USA Today

When it comes to layoffs, some workers are finding they can go home again. Firms are cutting employees only to hire them back.

Some are rehired due to an uptick in business. Others return to new assignments or duties. It's happening in industries where temporary job furloughs are not common.

For example:

• The Industry Standard, a weekly magazine on the Internet economy, this month suspended publication and laid off more than 150 employees. Some are being rehired, however, to run the operation's Web site, TheStandard.com.

• Entronix is rehiring more than 100 employees laid off this year after it lost a large customer. The Minneapolis-based electronics firm stayed in contact with downsized employees so it could easily bring them back.

• Wal-Mart Stores laid off about 100 workers at its home office in Bentonville, Ark., but has interviewed some of those workers for other positions. The firm had a job fair to help place downsized workers in crucial jobs that must be filled, and the hiring is ongoing.

Other signs of the shift: Charles Schwab, which laid off more than 2,000 in April, is promising $7,500 bonuses to those hired back within 18 months. They have no projections on how many, if any, may be rehired.

And laid-off full-time workers at Cisco Systems who work for an approved charity will get a third of their pay and be first to be rehired if the economy rebounds. Cisco laid off more than 8,000 full- and part-time employees in April. The program is aimed at helping non-profits while maintaining connections with laid-off workers.

Such tactics are spreading largely because of the uncertain economy and a continued need for workers, experts say.

"For a long time it was impossible to come back," says John Challenger of outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas. "Now companies prefer not to lose people they've invested money and training on. And they're getting better employees than they'd get on the open market."