The unemployment rate throughout most of the country remains consistently high at over 9.0%; this has been the case now for several months. Despite this, jobs continue to open and fill within most industries, and more and more companies continue to seek talent during the recession in an effort to recruit quality employees.

If this is true, the question remains...how can the unemployment remain so consistently high? The answer is a simple one. While the once lush job market is no longer, jobs are, in fact, being filled in many companies at the same time as layoffs continue in others within the same industies. And because this, too, is true, then one might ask...How much is being spent on severance for these employees who will be able to find new jobs quite quickly?

The Bureau of Labor statistics reported that in July, the number of unemployed persons remained unchanged at 14.6 million, yet during the same month there was a composite job loss of approximately 230,000. Significant numbers of these newly unemployed persons came from the financial sector, an industry known for its generous severance and highly employable employee. Presumably, with the unemployment rate remaining unchanged, these individuals found work relatively quickly, leaving them with a nice chunk of cash in the form of a parting bonus and a brand new job with income.

Job turnover in other industries proves not stagnant, as well. Construction in some areas has grown, waned in others. Healthcare industries continue to grow, offering positions for the medically trained and others to run administrations. While the government separated a good amount of people in July, those people must have returned to the workforce somewhere to keep the rate unchanged. The point here? People are going back to work, and sooner than employers believe they will.

Utilization of a separation benefits program paralleling benefits offered by State Unemployment agencies, designed wholly to assist the unemployed during the search for a new job, is an option which can allow a company to save a whole lot of money on severance. Subsidizing a leisure period, or perhaps a new boat, with a big severance package is not a step in the right direction toward a company's fiscal recovery. Alternative severance and separation benefits programs are available and highly flexible to meet the needs of employees and save money for employers. While companies may be hesitant to change a severance plan in a tumultuous time, is wasting more and more money due to timidity a good choice?