Anyone can be let go at anytime.” You’ve heard it before, but it’s an apt description about job security from a sales representative with a packaging distributor in the Northeast.
What follows are several of the most revealing comments made by survey respondents about packaging job security:
“There is no longer any security with any employer,” said a sales representative of a contract packager of houseware products in the Midwest. “Employers treat employees like disposable commodities, and in turn, employees are working just hard enough to avoid being laid off.”
A distribution center manager for a food packager in the Midwest noted that his company was “bought out by a huge conglomerate three years ago. Once the business became this large, fewer decisions are under your control. People who may not even understand or care to learn your end of the business hold your fate in their hands.”
“My job security is based on how well the company does,” noted a packaging engineer with a food packer in the Southwest. “We are pressed for sales. As long as the company survives, I will have a job.”
To be fair, many survey respondents indicated their job-security concerns were manageable, even nonexistent in some instances. At a pharmaceutical firm in the Midwest, a plant manager noted, “I truly do not have any concerns and am well treated by my employer. Oh sure, there are the day-to-day issues and challenges, but that’s why it’s called work.”
See the story that goes with this sidebar: Salary levels rise, as do job-security concerns
