Layoffs Don’t Lead to Corporate Efficiency

It should come as no surprise that layoffs rarely translate into corporate efficiency (“Study Ties Biggest CEO Raises to Largest Layoffs,” Aug. 26).

There have been three factors in the decisions to lay off so many American workers:

* The company is overgrown with too many employees without the income to pay for them. So, fire the executives who mismanaged the company in the first place.

* Too many executive compensation packages are designed to increase executive bonuses on the slightest, whimsical upswings of the company’s share price, a temptation too great for some chief executives.

* Wall Street’s most powerful investors, who are not holding their stocks for the long term, are seeking higher quarterly profits for a quick sale and profit by intimidating directors and CEOs to reduce overhead by either sending jobs overseas or simply firing a certain percentage of workers. This is about increasing personal power and wealth at the expense of the health of the company.

David Ohman

Irvine