1500 Jobs Gone

Weyerhauser is laying off 1500 people Here is the beginning of my post, delete this sentence.

Weyerhauser is a forestry products company, which got its start in Georgia. (You know why they never have big forest fires down south? The forests are privately owned.) It has been in the Seattle area for over 100 years. It has been through many economic eras.

A housing boom is good for a forestry company, for wood alone, but Weyerhauser makes all sorts of building supplies. AS the housing boom progressed, Weyerhauser saw it was "tradable" and did well. Now that tbhings are slowing down, and since they did not take on new debt, they can now just cut back, no problem.

My question is the people who took jobs at Weyerhauser over the last ten years, and I can guess most of the 1500 were hired in the last ten years. Within Weyerhauser there are plenty of top people who could see the boom was bogus and it would end badly for many, although not for Weyerhauser. They will last another 100 years at least. Within Weyerhauser there are managers who might have said to these hires over the last decade "this job will not last. Do not take on debt becuase within a few years your income will disappear, and it will be 30 years before anyone you know will see those kinds of jobs and employment again." CErtainly there are countless people outside of Weyerhauser who said so.

Now, would these people have taken these jobs? Would they have taken these jobs and moved on after it ended? Or would they have said, "no, I think I'll do my own thing?" I wonder if people were more versed in economic theory they'd be more inclined to be self employed.

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