I would say that these are the people who will be the first to get fired, because they have the lowest value and priorities for the company, considering that this is something that clients complain about the most. In times of financial crisis, it is easiest to replace people with automated systems that are already widely used in most customer support.
I used to be able to call my ISP and talk to a real person, now it takes at least 5-10 minutes to go through the whole process where the computer decides if it can offer me a solution before I get the opportunity to talk to a real person and then I get a message that I am 8 in the queue. All big companies protect profits without any hesitation to lay off 10% or 20% of people who are just numbers for them.