It’s that the jobs themselves have been eliminated and they may not be coming back.
What the data reveals is stark.
But hiring had plunged by 43% for middle managers and 57% for senior leaders.
If you had any sort of management experience, your job prospects were bleak.
In October, employers were still advertising 42% fewer middle-management positions than they did in April 2022.
Supervisors earning big salaries for rubber-stamping the work of their subordinates became an easy target.
Trim the fat, the thinking went, and the efficiencies will follow.
At the same time, the number of managers reporting directly to a CEO nearly doubled.
Executives got the flattening that they wanted.
But it’s unclear whether getting rid of middle managers actually made companies run more efficiently.
They communicate critical information to and from different parts of the company.
They smooth out glitches and spot opportunities.
They’re the ones who keep the trains running.
But now is an especially bad time to be an experienced supervisor.
Over the past year I’ve heard from hundreds of managers mired in this double whammy.
What’s struck me is how eerily similar their stories are.
They all come across as smart and articulate.
They’re all in their late 40s to 50s.
After all, they’d spentdecadeshoning their skills and climbing the corporate ladder, often at leading companies.
Surely, all that experience had to count for something.
But despite sending out hundreds of applications, they can’t get anyone to return their calls.
They’re utterly baffled, and they all have the same question:What is going on here?
But take the example of a former middle manager I’ll call Rick, who is 54.
At this point, all Rick wants is a chance to prove himself.
“Forget the titles, forget all that other stuff,” he told me.
“I just need a job.
My unemployment runs out in about 30 days.
I’ll come in and do a great job for you.”
Some have tried deleting former jobs from their resumes, to hide their supervisory experience.
Others, like Rick, omit the year they graduated from college.
“I really want to be doing this, and I’m not wedded to the title.”
That depends, in large part, on whether companies come to view the flattening as a success.
Many CEOs insist they aren’t getting rid of middle managers just to save money.
There’s a chance, of course, that the current craze for corporate flattening could ease over time.
Companies are already discovering that having few middle managers is placing an enormous strain on their operations.
“I just want to work with good people and enjoy what I’m doing.
I could go to Domino’s and start delivering pizza.
But I know I can do a lot more than that.”
Aki Itois a chief correspondent at Business Insider.
