Mark Schurman, who works for Herman Miller, an office furniture maker based in south-western Michigan, dreads to think what would have happened to the company had it not restructured since the last US recession.

“We lost about 40 per cent of our business in the space of about 18 months between 2001 and 2003,” he says. “If we hadn’t made the changes we’ve made, I don’t believe we could have survived.”