A Ray of Hope for Laid-Off Managers

If you’re a laid-off manager, you may stand a pretty good chance of getting a pleasant phone call from your former employer.

The Dreiford Group, a Bethesda, Md.-based consulting firm, predicts between one-third and one-half of the 1.4 million managers who lost their jobs over the past five years will be rehired by the companies that fired them, in many cases as consultants.

“Senior executives are admitting they made a mistake to cut to the bone,” says Craig Dreilinger, president of Dreiford. In some instances, he says, the returnees are paid more than than they earned before.

Consultants typically don’t get benefits such as health coverage. Still, it beats unemployment.