The boss of a big British bank was musing the other day on the contrast between this downturn and the last significant economic freeze in the early 1990s. The difference, he said, was in the quality of company management. In the previous downturn, for example, housebuilders dithered and delayed when confronted with empty show homes and falling house prices. This time, by contrast, he noted approvingly, they had acted with alacrity, dismissing legions of brickies, chippies and plasterers in less time that it takes to say “deceptively spacious”.

More...Managers walk fine line on redundancies