In addition to such contingent work, the massive layoffs and corporate downsizing that occurred in the 1990s were an indication of further changes in the contemporary workplace. No longer could long-term employees assume that there would always be a job available for them as long as they performed their jobs adequately. This seemed to come as a particular shock to hundreds of thousands of middle-aged, white-collar workers who lost their jobs as a result of corporate downsizing. Similar issues have arisen more recently when an increasingly global economy has resulted in jobs being outsourced to lower- paid foreign workers. The rules and expectations of the workplace are clearly changing.