Laid-Off Employees

Instead of an article on Poland’s “over-the-hill” 35-year-olds (Oct. 14) The Times should be focusing on our own “over-the-hill” 45-plus-year-olds.

These are the middle managers who have been dismissed by businesses in their attempts to “maximize profits.” These oldest of the baby boomers, well-educated, with years of experience and with the expertise and wisdom that come with maturity, cannot find jobs. Interviewers tell them that they are “overqualified” or that they will become bored with jobs of lesser importance and so will not stay.

The truth is that these companies, looking only at the quarterly bottom line, are willing to sacrifice quality for the mediocrity that comes from fewer and less-experienced workers. The doors are thereby closed to some of our finest people who were so often businesses’ mainstays, with their ability to develop cohesive groups loyal to their employers, stimulate rapport among groups, and interest in creative pursuits to benefit the companies, all in addition to handling their own job responsibilities.

Although the economic climate is not good, companies must nevertheless take the long-term view before they find themselves eviscerated and puzzling over a general slowdown of profitable activities due to this tragic displacement of middle managers. Like an army, a business cannot run with only generals and privates.

EVELYN WAXMAN

Mission Viejo

* While it is nice to read about laid-off employees who landed on their feet (Oct. 20), the fact is that outplacement services cannot change one nasty bit of arithmetic. If there are 100 people in the labor force and 90 jobs available, at the end of the day 10 will be unemployed. Outplacement may help someone avoid ending up among the unlucky 10, but basically it reshuffles the queue.

Common sense and numerous empirical studies tell us that it is better to seek work when jobs are going begging than when people are going begging. What the local and national economies need are more jobs, not more outplacement.

DANIEL J.B. MITCHELL, Professor

UCLA Graduate School of Management