In the decade from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, large corporations were rocked by mergers, re-engineering, and downsizing  These events significantly undermined employees' job security  Surprisingly, however, employees' perception of their own job security hardly changed over that period
Fifty-eight percent of employees surveyed in 1984 and 55 percent surveyed in 1994 stated that their own jobs were very secure
The corporate downsizing that took place during this period had been widely anticipated for several years before the mid-1980s.