Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

Citing data from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. and adding up the proliferation of layoff announcements recently made, an AP report says over 40,000 workers have lost their jobs at mortgage lending businesses since the beginning of the year. From the beginning of August alone, over 25,000 people have lost their jobs in the industry, more than half since last Friday.

"It's far from over," said Bart Narter, a senior analyst with Celent, a Boston-based financial research and consulting firm. "The subprime lending collapse will continue to ripple through the financial sector."

Jobs connected to the construction industry have also fallen, with almost 20,000 losing their jobs so far this year. Almost every bit of these job cuts are connected to the US housing market problems.

One thing to keep in mind is a number of these workers have gotten jobs elsewhere, nonetheless, many haven't.

With the extraordinary growth and bust in the industry, it's a good opportunity to revisit something we talk about here at managersrealm all the time: managing growth.

Herb Kelleher has mentioned a number of times concerning Southwest Airlines (LUV), he wouldn't hire large numbers of new workers when the airline received extra business. If he overhired in response to some extra business, he knew he would have had to lay off workers. So he would let existing workers do the bulk of the work and let things work out from there. The results were fantastic over the years he headed up Southwest.

As CEO John A. Challenger at Challenger, Gray & Christmas said, "These kind of mortgage lenders just sprung up like mushrooms and grew like men. They staffed up and now you have a bust."

Anybody that attempts to grow a business too fast, will end up in a similar circumstance the mortgage industry is in now. We must understand that the type of growth and expectations in the mortgage industry had no chance of being sustainable. Every time something like the big boom in mortgages happens. many deceived and ignorant people thing the rules have changed this time around, as far as how long things can grow at that type of pace. It just isn't realistic.

We need to have growth plans in place at our companies that ensure steady, solid growth, but a plan that doesn't allow things to heat up too quickly. You let things heat up too quickly, and you'll definitely get burned.