Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Should American CEOs be rewarded for slashing jobs?

An in-depth survey of 50-listed American companies by the Institute of Policy Studies showed that many of the companies, which slashed the maximum number of jobs, paid around 42 per cent higher compensation to their respective CEOs. The study on the 50 companies in the broader S&P 500 Index reveals that their CEOs enjoyed larger payouts in comparison to their peers heading other S&P firms at the time when these companies had laid off the most of their employees.

"Our findings illustrate the great unfairness of the Great Recession. CEOs are squeezing workers to boost short term profits and fatten their own pay checks," Institute for Policy Studies' study author Sarah Anderson said.

The 50 top CEOs, better described by the institute as "layoff leaders", on an average received a pay packet of $12 million in 2009. Interestingly, their peers at other S&P 500 companies earned just $8.5 million on average. As per the report, firms headed by these 50 CEOs had laid off at least 3,000 workers between November, 2008-April, 2010. Ironically, the majority of the job cuts (72 per cent) were announced at a time when these companies saw good earnings.

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