[001sky]

But the economy and the job market are a lot more fluid

-- And also management internally.

They are are surely related, but ultimately its almost always a people problem, in the sense that a manager is replaced or layered (or perhaps politically ostracised in some machivellian way). Then the employee is asking himself if he is throwing good money after bad, in a landscape where no wager--no matter how astute--will ever pay off.