Companies Cutting Back on Holiday Parties in Recession

Companies appear to be cutting back on holiday parties again this season—or so the data from our recent poll would suggest. Almost 70 percent of respondents reported that their companies were either planning more modest parties than in recent years, or nothing at all. A quarter of respondents, meanwhile, reported that plans for the annual corporate bash seemed to be being pulled straight from the file marked "same ol' same ol'" in the HR office. That left a mere four percent anticipating the biggest and best festive occasion in the history of lavish opportunities to embarrass yourself in front of your colleagues. Any chance they all work on Wall Street?

I don't know which is the worse economic indicator—the steadily rising unemployment number over the course of the year*, or the prospect of over a third of the still-working workforce being denied the annual opportunity to watch that guy from accounts finally soak up enough "courage" to declare his undying love to a colleague who, it turns out, doesn't even know his name.

--Posted by Phil Stott, Vault.com

*Fingers crossed for tomorrow's announcement being lower than 10.2 percent.