From a psychological perspective, this paper explores the effects of staff reduction, resulting from declining enrollment, on elementary and secondary teachers in Ontario. The authors state that fear of future unemployment has contributed to the stressful nature of teaching and is likely to retard the efficiency of even those teachers who retain their jobs. When the lottery method is employed to determine who will be fired, teachers lose confidence in their ability to control their own lives whether they "win" or not. The paper reviews past attempts to ease professional unemployment, drawing from the experience of the depression and more recent history. Some partial solutions include job sharing, shortened work weeks, and part-time work. The authors conclude that schools and teachers must be responsive to the present and adopt an appropriate philosophy of change in order to avoid fossilization. (Author/WD)