I’ve written here about how the recently announced liquidation of Hostess, formerly known as Intercontinental Baking, means the loss of 18,000 jobs.

Of course, people at the top are getting bonuses in all this. A report last week put bonuses for senior people and others at $1.75 million. Too bad most of the line workers, drivers and other everyday Joes and Joans won’t see any of that. They actually got the products made and delivered everyday while senior management lost touch with the market and blamed labor costs for all their woes.

My favorite snack food is no more, and 18,000 people are job hunting.

So should those line workers, etc. have always been job hunting, as my book of the same name advocates? Without a doubt. The company had been in bankruptcy before and hadn’t really changed its ways much, another bankruptcy was inevitable. When should they have been looking?

When would you look? I’ve started job hunting when companies I’ve worked at either put the entire company for sale or offered a piece I was working on for sale to raise enough money to keep the rest of the company going.

Why not stay and help the company through rough times? Because there’s rarely any reward for that. Senior most management may get bonuses, but I’ve more often been middle management and middle management is the most expandable layer in any company these days. Your unspoken contract with an employer is to do the best job you can as long as you work there, not to go down with a sinking ship and then risk months or years out of work.

So, take my advice and Always Be Job Hunting.
John N. Frank