gold-collar workers

A play on the terms "blue-collar worker" and "white-collar worker" this is a designation for employees who survive a downsizing.

Analysts say mass layoffs, where companies dismiss more than 50 workers, are not about weeding out the bad employees, but about keeping the ones who can handle extra workloads. Any employee who can easily pick up the slack in a downsized organization greatly improves his or her chances of being retained during a reorganization. Any employee can become a "gold-collar worker" by taking advantage of training and continuing education opportunities. While human resource professionals are looking through the pool of readily available candidates with pink slips in hand, they are also courting the overburdened multitaskers who remain.