Keep your résumé updated regardless of your layoff risk

Many are seeing layoffs in the news and wondering about their own risk of being laid off. Every industry, company, even department has a different risk, but some areas are more vulnerable than others.

The basic rule is the closer your job is to the most profitable activities of the company, the lower your risk of layoff.

If you're an essential part of building the most profitable product for your company, your layoff risk is low. When retreating to the core business, companies turn to th...

If, when times were flush, the company recently decided to explore new lines of business, or expand into new territories, those are tenuous places to work.

Unless the company is making a concerted effort to pivot entirely to these new areas, these kinds of new initiatives are often the firs...

At the extreme end of the risk spectrum are contract employees. One of the main reasons companies use temporary or contract workers is for this very contingency.

Contract employees are usually the first out when the tide turns.

Beyond these areas, most jobs fall somewhere in between t...

Those areas run quite lean in most companies.

There is usually little excess to cut. In addition, HR is essential in the layoff process, and finance is often relied on as the financial status gets more scrutiny.

As such, these areas are rarely the source of major cuts in most layoffs....

More risky are the activities considered luxuries, like generous benefits and employee perks, and so on.

If you are involved in planning events, for example, those are some of the first things that companies cut when times get tight.