It may be an overall increase in economic anxiety, even at the corporate level. At one time, AT&T could probably not imagine their status would ever really chan

It may be an overall increase in economic anxiety, even at the corporate level. At one time, AT&T could probably not imagine their status would ever really change; today, you'd be foolish to be running almost any company in the US economy and think that the company's position in 10 years is likely to be similar to the one it has today. Making longer term investments in employee skills is almost certainly concomittant with the idea of tackling their income needs/desires/wants, and that looks intimidating when you don't have faith that your company will still be growing 5 years from now.