A book from the States has attempted to fill that void.  In Responsible Restructuring Professor Wayne Cascio of the University of Colorado has examined the performance of organisations that have laid off staff in response to previous economic downturns, and has concluded that those who manage to avoid this drastic measure are more successful than those who have followed the pack and cut staff drastically. He lists the direct and indirect costs of redundancies.  Most of the direct costs are easily understood:  severance pay, accumulated holiday pay, outplacement costs, possible pensions’ costs and the possibility of having to re-employ people to adapt to changing circumstances.  But his study of indirect costs is equally important.  He sees these as, among others: low morale and risk adverse survivors, potential lawsuits, loss of institutional memory and knowledge, reduced productivity and a loss of trust in management. The last point is particularly important as his work shows that key employees, who an organisation does not want to leave, are more likely to seek employment elsewhere if they work for a management who they see as prone to making workers redundant.

Now it has to be said that his work is on the American experience, and primarily relates to the private sector, but it is a useful contribution to a debate about whether redundancies are the cost cutting solution that they might appear.