Job one is jobs won.(LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN)

WHILE NO CEO enjoys wielding the ax, many are getting good at it. Last year 2.5 million Americans lost their jobs, and this year a few million more will. On the precipice of a '30s-like Depression, CEOs in conjunction with their boards of directors are laying off large swaths of their employees. In the halcyon days just a few years ago, Donald Trump's punch line "You're fired!" did not seem so terminal, but in today's labor market, losing your job seems like a death sentence. The old adage is all too real: a recession is when your neighbor loses his job; a Depression is when you lose yours.

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A job provides more than just a living; it offers self-worth, respect, dignity. Unemployment is terrifying to those working, and horrifying for those who are not. The official unemployment rate has reached 7%, but the unofficial rate, which includes those working less than they want as well as those who have abandoned their search, is close to 15%, not so distant from the Depression Era's 25%. When you talk to people like my father who grew up in the 1930s, they recall searing images of people sleeping in the streets with newspapers wrapped around them; and, as a consequence, they developed and have often maintained a horrendous fear of being unemployed. Today's psychology is veering in this direction.

In a recent posting to his Boards At Their Best blog, Jim Kristie wrote: "I'm sure boards hate to sanction management's layoff decisions. My wish is that both management and the board feel the preciousness of having a job--and that they're not engaging willy-nilly ...