One of the recession’s casualties could be the further erosion of employee trust in employers, with a corresponding hit to business bottom lines.

Trust can seem esoteric, a nice-to-have. But it actually plays a major role in the economy and within a company. Just as consumer trust in a brand can make or break a retailer, employee trust can make or break a firm’s productivity and innovation. As consultant Stephen M.R. Covey has pointed out, lower trust taxes a firm through lower speed and higher cost.

Recently, there have been hints of an economic recovery in the United States. And there has been some evidence of increased employee commitment to firms, part of what might be called a Three Musketeers moment of shared sacrifice amid hard times.

But other signs point to growing cynicism toward businesses and business leaders. In January, public relations firm Edelman said that only 38 percent of U.S. respondents to its annual trust survey said they trust business to do what is right—a 20 percent drop since last year. Just 17 percent said they trust information from a company’s CEO. Both are lower levels of trust than those Edelman measured in the wakes of the Enron scandal, the dot-com bust and the September 11 terrorist attacks.

In recent months, companies have shown greater interest in furloughs, which keep employees connected to employers and can preserve morale. But the initial response to the downturn at many firms appears to have been panicked job cutting. Seventy-two percent of organizations surveyed by consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide in April laid off employees or otherwise reduced their workforce.

This recession, then, has continued the disintegration of the social contract around work in America. For the past three decades or so, risk has been shifted from government and businesses to workers in the form of less-secure jobs, health care and retirement benefits. And the U.S. safety net, although bolstered under the Obama administration, remains relatively skimpy.

For companies and the country to enjoy sustainable success, it seems a new compact around work will be needed. It may not mean a return to guaranteed jobs for life, but it will probably involve a still-stronger government safety net and new efforts to rebuild trust between companies and employees.

A new report from The Conference Board research group underscores this point. The report found that trust, transparency and clear communication are vital to preserving engagement and productivity in the wake of layoffs.

“The downsizing action itself pits a management team’s interests against employees’ interests—essentially promoting an ‘us against them’ atmosphere,” report author Stephanie Creary says in a statement. “Survivors will perceive the layoffs as either fair or unfair based on the extent to which they believe the decision to layoff employees was either strategic or impulsive.”

Communications consultant Alison Davis adds that flooding employee e-mail in-boxes with sophisticated memos isn’t the answer. It’s an era of interactive media, and workers want authenticity from leaders, she said in an essay earlier this year for The Conference Board Review publication: “Employees want to hear what leaders really think and feel, not listen to carefully scripted talking points.”

Experts are predicting another jobless recovery in the wake of this recession. If companies don’t do more to rebuild their reputations among workers, we may have a trustless recovery as well.