40% of Employers Don’t Have Severance Policies

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported the national unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent in January 2012, the lowest it’s been in three years. Although the rate of unemployment continues to slowly trend downward, it remains important for employers to have a defined set of post-employment practices in place. The Compdata Surveys BenchmarkPro 2011 survey results found 60.5 percent of companies currently have a severance policy.

This rate varies by industry as 71.2 percent of insurance companies report having a severance policy in place, compared to 62.4 percent in healthcare. Services employers have severance policies at a rate of 58.5 percent. Organizations in not-for-profit report having them the least, 45.6 percent. Continue Reading