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Merit-based pay raises have also been frozen for the remainder of the year. So far, three employees have been placed on unpaid leave at Orthopaedics East & Sports Medicine Center, but, to forestall further cuts, hourly employees are working 30 hours, rather than 40, and managers, directors and physicians have taken a “significant pay cut,” says Cindy Cronkhite, assistant administrator. “If a company wants to hit the ground running when things improve, a furlough is the better choice,” says attorney Chris Lamb of Fortis Law Partners in Denver.įurloughs became unavoidable at one large Greenville, N.C., orthopedics clinic when doctors in the area stopped performing elective surgeries. When a business expects revenue to rebound soon, furloughs might be the best option. In contrast, when an employer announces layoffs, the general assumption is that the employees aren’t coming back. But furloughed employees remain on the books, and they often continue to receive benefits and health coverage.
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But the decision of how to accomplish that has financial and legal implications for the business and its employees.įurloughs generally involve reduced work hours or temporary leave without pay. Many employers have little choice but to reduce payroll in response to income lost during the pandemic. The decisions they make now will affect the ability of their businesses to recover as the economy rebounds. But business leaders contemplating layoffs, as well as when and how to start recalling employees, must work through myriad strategic considerations and navigate a complex tangle of federal and state laws governing pay, benefits and notice requirements. “We don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot by having to turn around and lay these folks off again,” she says.įor many organizations, staff cuts provide a first line of defense against financial devastation. But even after being approved for financial aid from the state and the federal government, the manager, who asked that neither she nor the business be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, says she’s unsure about whether to reinstate the furloughed workers now or when business gets back to normal. The firm furloughed three employees in mid-March when doctors began delaying nonessential procedures such as hip and knee replacements that generated physical therapy referrals. “We want to bring everyone back,” says the business manager for a Maryland physical therapy practice.
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The promise of free federal money to employers who maintain payroll is providing little solace to business leaders when they have no way of knowing how long the crisis, or the money, will last. The gloomy picture was confirmed in research from the Society for Human Resource Management released in April, as many employers have had to make staffing changes to stay solvent. Louis in late March estimated that more than 47 million Americans could be laid off by the end of second quarter of 2020. A research brief issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Virtually all of the job gains made in the decade since the Great Recession were erased in a matter of weeks.ĭespite the passage of historic economic relief legislation that includes hundreds of billions of dollars in forgivable loans to businesses that keep their employees on payroll through the downturn, there's mounting evidence that the job cuts are far from over. The widespread commitment to public safety, in many instances undergirded by local and state shelter-in-place mandates, has had a catastrophic impact on the economy and resulted in massive job losses.Īs of late April, more than 30 million Americans had filed for unemployment benefits-the most dramatic rise in claims ever recorded. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of Americans to suspend their normal daily activities and stay at home.
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Of course, the zoo's circumstances are far from unique. With the zoo's revenue suddenly reduced by the shutdown, Sizemore, the chief human resources officer at the nonprofit Friends of the National Zoo, furloughed three-quarters of the 180 employees who run the zoo's educational programs, sell memorabilia, staff information booths and otherwise contribute to the visitor experience. When the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., closed its doors to visitors in March to help control the spread of the coronavirus, Kate Sizemore was forced to make a difficult decision.
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