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Job Security - Where Did It Go?
By Kimo Look

What happened?
This is but one of several important questions:

• What is happening?
• Why is it happening?
• What can or should we do to get the security we want and need?

After all, we all have house payments and car payments and we must feed, clothe, and educate our kids (if we have kids) and think about the winter season of our own lives.

We must explore and thoroughly understand these very important questions to protect ourselves and strategically guide our careers. This issue outlines predictions about our careers and steps we should be taking.

As mentioned in previous articles, we are involved in BIG change. Our society is caught up in what many call the Information Revolution. A major outcome of this revolution is intense competitiveness in business and in the economy. The results play out in our newspapers every day. Have you noticed that, for the last decade, an unusually large number of companies have undergone drastic change-either mega-merger and massive buyouts or unbelievable bankruptcy and enormous downsizing? This is how the U.S. economy and the companies within it are adjusting to the Revolution!

Along with these changes and intense competition came (or more accurately, "went") the notion of job security.

The accuracy of this viewpoint may be irrelevant. The fact is: Our job security has changed. You probably know more people now who have changed jobs in the few last years than you knew 10 years ago. You probably feel less secure than you did 10 years ago.