Are we laying off the right people?

Are we laying off the right people?  That's a question I am sure many people across the nation ask themselves and others.  Every month, week and sometimes daily when we hear or see in the news where another company or state, county, or city has been "forced" to layoff workers.  Sometimes they (the agency) claim that layoffs or job elimination will be through employee attrition or retirement or by not filling vacant positions.  More often than not it is by laying off real people, your friends and mine.

As an independent contractor, I don't have to worry about this for myself as long as I continue to make enough money through Real Estate sales to pay my bills and hopefully have a little left over.  I am the boss, and also the driver, administrative assistant, webmaster, lead generator...etc for my little one person business.  The buck starts and stops here!  I also know that if I fail, there are no government programs to bail me out. I don't get the option of unemployment, job retraining and other options that may be available to the regular "employee" positions when those workers lose their jobs through layoffs.

But recent county layoffs here with Hillsborough County and cutbacks in the County School system with teachers, nurses, aides and others made me think.  Are we laying off the right people?  The people making these "hard" decisions which affect others would never consider eliminating their own jobs or positions and this photograph clearly explains the situation.

It's not the administrators or upper management that needs to worry, it's the people down in the trenches, those that are actually doing the work.  It's Jose, or Joe, or Josephine that needs to worry and they have no real voice in the situation. 

I freely admit that I "stole" this image from an email I received under a similar, but different subject.  It is not mine and I have no idea who the owner is or who placed the captions for the different management levels. Therefor, I cannot give credit where credit is due, for this I apologize.  But, the picture is worth it's thousand words and more!