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  • Published: 15 July 2007
  • ISBN: 9781400034338
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $38.00

The Disposable American

Layoffs and Their Consequences



The sobering story of America's embrace of downsizing and its devastating impact on Americans of all backgrounds. First time in paperback.

A timely, eye-opening account from an award-winning reporter that reveals how layoffs in America are counterproductive and what companies can do to avoid them and help create jobs, benefiting workers, corporations, and the nation as a whole.

“Effectively wrecks the claim that all this downsizing makes the country more productive, more competitive, more flexible…. A strong case that the whole middle class is at risk.” —The New York Times

Layoffs have become a fact of life in today’s economy; initiated in the mid 1970s, they are now widely expected, and even accepted. It doesn’t have to be that way.

In The Disposable American, Louis Uchitelle offers an eye-opening account of layoffs in America–how they started, their questionable necessity, and their devastating psychological impact on individuals at all income levels. Through portraits of both executives and workers at companies such as Stanley Works, United Airlines, and Citigroup, Uchitelle shows how layoffs are in fact counterproductive, rarely promoting efficiency or profitability in the long term. Recognizing that a global competitive economy makes tightening necessary, Uchitelle offers specific recommendations for government policies that would encourage companies to avoid layoffs and help create jobs.

  • Published: 15 July 2007
  • ISBN: 9781400034338
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $38.00

About the author

Louis Uchitelle

Louis Uchitelle worked as a reporter, a foreign correspondent, and the editor of the business news department at the Associated Press before joining The New York Times in 1980. He has been writing about business, labor, and economics for the Times since 1987. He was the lead reporter for the Times series “The Downsizing of America,” which won a George Polk Award in 1996. He has taught at Columbia University and was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York in 2002–2003. He lives with his wife, Joan, in Scarsdale, New York.