In a strange twist of the economic downturn, some college seniors in North Carolina and elsewhere are getting severance packages before they were employed.

Nortel, Cisco Systems, IBM and other high-tech companies made offers to graduating seniors last fall or winter and then had to rescind them because of hiring freezes or wholesale cutbacks. Most companies won’t confirm details about the severance packages, but Nortel reportedly gave a minimum of $1,000 to its disappointed hirees, while Cisco Systems allotted three months pay.

That might seem paltry compared to the $50,000-plus starting salaries the grads expected as software engineers or programmers with Research Triangle companies. But it all depends on your perspective. For hundreds of laid-off manufacturing employees in our area, it sounds like an unbelievable windfall. Some of them didn’t even get two-weeks notice, or even learned that benefits they thought they had paid for might not be available.

Maybe these grads have gotten a crash course in a valuable lesson of modern economics. In today’s marketplace, there are no guarantees. You have to be flexible and prepared for the unexpected — although it’s still somewhat unusual to be hired and retired at the same time.