We’re all so busy that time off is usually positioned by companies to employees as a terrific benefit. One form of time off seems to be growing more popular by the day. But in this case, it’s a perk that’s a lot more popular with top management than midlevel managers or the rank and file.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? It’s the unpaid vacation—also known as a furlough.

Companies and organizations everywhere are trimming budgets and dealing with the plunging economy by forcing workers, whether they like it or not, to take time off—without pay. Here’s an example from today: Gannett, America’s largest newspaper chain (and one of my former employers) initiated a furlough program that will force the company’s 40,000 employees to take an unpaid week off sometime during this quarter.

“To be clear,” wrote Gannett newspaper division President Bob Dickey in a companywide memo, “a furlough means you will not work and will not be paid for furlough days.”

And, it’s not just Gannett that’s going the furlough route. The trend is spreading like a California wildfire.

“Involuntary, unpaid furloughs, some stretching for weeks, are becoming a favorite means of cutting corporate costs in this tough economic climate, in Seattle and elsewhere,” according to a story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  The story lists a number of companies throughout the greater Seattle area that have resorted to furloughs and adds, “Most workers, when the break is mandatory and unpaid—concur (that) such breaks are far better than being laid off.”

I noted last November that Dell was making use of unpaid time off during the holidays, but little did I know at the time that they were simply way ahead of the curve on this trend. And as I noted back then, it’s just another sign of the times but that doesn’t make it any more palatable. And who knew I would be such a good prognosticator when I added, “if Dell can get enough people to take the company up on this unpaid vacation ‘offer,’ it will likely be a trend you’ll see other me-too managers and executives drop on their workforces.”

That’s exactly what happened, of course, and as much as I hate the notion of forced, unpaid time off, I’m with all those Seattle workers—it sure beats the alternative of laying people off.

Still, what a pain this must be to manage. As a former top editor for Gannett at newspapers in Montana and Hawaii, my head hurts just thinking about how midlevel managers across the company are going to make this work in Gannett’s famously lean staffing environment.

But desperate times call for desperate measures. That’s a management trusism, and very applicable today. What I really fear is that as bad as this is for workers and the workplace, the worst is still to come.

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