As many folks are aware, I am one of the long term un/underemployed. I have not worked in my chosen career field of Software Quality Assurance and Testing in nearly seven years. I know it sounds counter intuitive, especially after all my rants over the past year on the subject of jobs and employment, but there are positive reasons for folks to lose their jobs.
There have been a couple of NY Times articles this weekend that have covered a few of these situations. First up is this article from yesterday (Saturday, April 2) on nonprofits "going out of business" due to achieving the desired results:
So far, the number of organizations opting to go out of business for mission-related reasons is too small to call a trend. It is still far more common for a nonprofit to close its doors because of financial pressure, which is increasing as governments continue to pare their budgets and donors maintain tight grips on their giving.
Still, the novelty of organizations going out of business once their work is done has attracted attention.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a widespread phenomenon because there are a lot of groups taking on problems like alcoholism and domestic violence that aren’t problems that go away,” said Jan Masaoka, editor in chief of Blue Avocado, a blog for nonprofits. “But I do see that in some cases there is an opportunity for organizations to wind down gracefully and with their job done.”
...snip...
What will happen to Malaria No More’s employees is perhaps Mr. Case’s biggest concern.
But Martin Edlund, who has worked for the organization since its founding in 2006, said that he was more excited about the significance of its ending. “We talk around here about malaria being the first great humanitarian success story of the 21st century, and I comfort myself at night knowing that if I have that accomplishment on my résumé, I’m not going to have any trouble finding another job,” he said.
