No one is sure when Lincoln Electric had its most recent layoff. CEO Christopher Mapes thinks it was in the 1950s. Vice president Amanda Butler believes it was the late 1940s. Documents suggest it was no later than 1951 and could have been as long as 1925. Whenever it was, no one at Lincoln Electric today was there to witness it, or maybe even alive when it happened.
Layoffs are a fact of business life. Over 1 million U.S. workers lose their jobs that way every month, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. So for a company to avoid layoffs through the towering inflation of the early 1980s, the stock market plunge of 2000-2001, the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-2009, and the pandemic seems abnormal. To avoid layoffs, surely such a company must sacrifice financial performance. Surely it pays substandard wages to work-averse, clock-watching employees its no-layoffs policy must attract.
