Truthfully, any layoff is bad news. The recent layoff of over 300 Nassau County Civil Service workers is even more disturbing. Job loss and seeking re-employment is not as easy task; However for the recently laid off civil service workers, the task of re-employment will be even more difficult.

Many readers may not realize that government workers are not subject to some of the rights and privileges those who work in the private sector are accustomed to. In a recent Newsday article, one of the writers called this layoff a lose-lose scenario. Here are some of the reasons why it will be far more difficult for the recently laid off employees to find re-employment:

1): Most Businesses in the private sector are covered by the WARN act. The WARN act requires that employers give their employees a 60 day notice if a major layoff is to take place. During that 60 day period, those affected by a layoff can write or update their resumes and begin a job search. Nassau County Employees are not covered under the WARN act, and as a result had little chance to prepare…

2): Transferrable skills may also be an issue. The term “transferrable skills” refers to experience that is easily transplanted from one position to another. Most people who work in the private sector have many transferrable skills. Those who work for government, especially lower level employees may lack many of these skills; for example, up until a few years ago many Nassau Employees used an old word processing program instead of Microsoft Word. Other Microsoft programs such as Excel and Access were rarely, if ever used. In addition, some positions held by government employees are unique to the public sector.

3): Many private sector industries give counseling to employees who are about to be laid off. This counseling may be in the form of resume classes, psychological counseling and interview training. While public re-employment services such as Nassau Works provide these services, having an additional firm enhance those efforts gives private sector employees an additional advantage.

Perhaps the unkindest cut of all to dismissed Nassau County employees has to do with the way severance issues are being handled. In most cases, a private sector company will provide you with a severance check, as well as a check for unused vacation and sick time during your exit interview. The affected Nassau County employees received a final paycheck for their last two work weeks of service, period. In addition, Instead of receiving a check for unused vacation and sick time, the laid off employees were told that they would have to wait at least 4 weeks to receive a percentage of their unused time. The remainder would be paid out during a 3 year period, leaving the former employees to figure out how they are going to pay their bills during the month of January. Even if the former employees file their unemployment claims promptly, they will not receive their first unemployment check until the third week of January, at best.

Whenever any local government has to resort to mass dismissals of employees, we can be sure the result will be an immediate decline in the quality of services we expect from our government. One of the Nassau County Union leaders told the local press that “a tax increase, equivalent to the price of a cup of coffee a day would have been enough to prevent these layoffs.” This writer is sure that anyone who has been through job loss, and is now currently working would not have an issue with an increase of this nature.

This writer will not rest until those who have lost their positions find re-employment.