This Great Recession is bringing out a new classification of employee in small business: Someone who is still working but not getting paid by the company because of its cash flow issues.

This has always been common in start ups. There are many times that employees begin to work for a new company and don’t get paid (or paid in stock) or get partial pay. Those of us that are start up warriors have come to expect this. It comes with the territory.

But now comes the second year of the recession where cash flow is tight for most businesses. Every customer it seeems is paying later. This includes large corporations who have extended their terms in many cases to 120 days or want to take a discount for paying within terms at 30 days! Outrageous!

This has put extreme cash pressure on every small business and many can’t make payroll or can only pay their employees part of their salaries. It used to be if a company could not make payroll, the employees walked. But in this Great Recession, where are they to walk to? With unemployment climbing to almost 10% levels, there are few jobs that these unpaid employees can move to….so they stay working for the company, not getting paid and hoping for better times…a time when they can get paid.

If you were at a job where you were not getting paid, how long would you stay before quitting to find other work?