In his first book, Louis Uchitelle, an award-winning business reporter for The New York Times, examines the accelerating trend of corporate layoffs in America. In The Disposable American: Layoffs and their Consequences, Uchitelle examines rising job insecurity from its origins as a largely blue-collar phenomena in the mid 1970s to how it today affects white-collar workers as well. Arguing that we are now in an era of "downward mobility," he blows the lid off the myth that in America there is always work, and good pay, for the educated and skilled; and that new training creates jobs.

Job insecurity is the order of the day for most Americans, and Uchitelle challenges the conventional wisdom that this is good for the economy. He makes the case that rather than continue the era of layoffs, we should challenge inflated executive pay, leveraged buyouts, and other poor corporate practices.

Uchitelle has been writing about business, labor and economics for The New York Times since 1987 and was the lead reporter for the paper's series "The Downsizing of America," which won a George Polk Award in 1996. He has taught at Columbia University and was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York in 2002-2003.