How secure is your job? My industry is laying off and of course rumors are flying around at my workplace. Since I’m an outside vendor I am an expense that has a high likelyhood of getting trimmed. So, I’m nervous.
Anyone else feeling the pressure?
Yeah, I felt the pressure… 2 months ago when I was laid off after 10 years with the company. I was in middle management and worked for large corporation…one of the ones included in the Dow Jones Ind Avg.
Just heard from one of my oldest friends, who survived 30 rounds of layoffs in Silicon Valley over the last 25 years - his number finally came up and was just let go. He got quite the severance package and his wife still works so they’ll be OK. His company is looking at a 60% decline in revenues and 1.5-2 year turn-around time.
Chris
Always worried…but you get used to it.
Been in manufacturing in business for myself for 15+ years now. It’s gone from “Long term” projects, 2-12 months to just about everything we get is “Short term”. Even projects that were 12 month projects 10 years ago are now 6 months projects.
In short We might be busier than hell one month and dead the next, you never no.
We have seen some pretty unsettling trends. Some of our vendors are very slow. Had to wait for almost 2 weeks for some parts a while back because they didn’t have enough parts to run with ours to make it worth it for them. To that date the longest we had ever had to wait for this process was 3 days.
One of our customers was doing short term layoffs, but long short term, 2 months or so.
It’s not looking good out there but supposedly not as bad as the early 80’s.
~Matt
As someone who lives and breathes economic and corporate developments on a daily basic, along with having been unemployed during the the last downturn, my advice is to be worried.
Take any and all precautions you can. Go to the library this weekend and map out some contingency plans as silly and stupid as that sounds. Look at this as a survival situation and plan accordingly. Anyone that has lost a job previously will know what I talking about.
Bottom line: Be able to see the big picture, while still recognizing what is going on close to home.
Take any and all precautions you can. Go to the library this weekend and map out some contingency plans as silly and stupid as that sounds. Look at this as a survival situation and plan accordingly.
I agree that there seems to be a good chance of things getting a lot worse… but then I wonder if I’m just paranoid.
What exactly should we look up at the library?
Yeah, I’m hording cash right now in case I need to pay bills for the next couple months. Market isn’t a great place for my cash right now 
My husband just got a promotion so I think he’s OK as long as his program doesn’t get cut. As long as he keeps his job we’ll be fine for a couple months. I hate dipping into our reserves too much though.
Jobs are never safe. Ever. The company I contract for has never laid anyone off and its possible they won’t but because I’m essentially a consultant so I’m easy to kick to the curb.
Ugh.
Take any and all precautions you can. Go to the library this weekend and map out some contingency plans as silly and stupid as that sounds. Look at this as a survival situation and plan accordingly.
I agree that there seems to be a good chance of things getting a lot worse… but then I wonder if I’m just paranoid.
What exactly should we look up at the library?
The problem as I see it is that we are in for an unemployment shock. The negative feedback loop that comes along with that is something that is untested in our lifetimes.
That’s what I worry about. If I get laid off then it will be extremely difficult to find work because there will be a lot of us out of work who do the same thing. Might be time to brush up on my burger flipping skillz.
I’m in real estate. Worrying is a way of life.
The problem as I see it is that we are in for an unemployment shock. The negative feedback loop that comes along with that is something that is untested in our lifetimes.
Where were you when everyone was slamming me for being so doom-and-gloom on the economy?
Could be worse than the Great Depression. We built a house of cards on financial fraud, and there is no way to avoid paying the price. This has hit the entire world. The sad thing is that our economy hasn’t even been good since 2000… and it’s about to get a lot worse.
I’m not really that worried. I mean, the chance is really high that my job will disappear from one of many possible reasons. However, I have plans. With UI benefits and income from my roommates, I have enough money to pay my bills and actually save up a bit of money as well. Once that is done, I have about 3 months of expenses in the bank to help out. I’m also willing to take a significant pay cut and I’m actually looking to change industries so that will hopefully open up some doors. I have a few opportunities right now and hopefully will get me something soon.
Are you kidding? I dodged two bullets last year and we are getting ready for another round of layoffs within the next two weeks. Times are tough all over and they won’t get easier anytime soon.
Mostly I started this thread as a way to bond over our worries than expecting any real answers.
Yeah, I’m hording cash right now in case I need to pay bills for the next couple months. Market isn’t a great place for my cash right now
My husband just got a promotion so I think he’s OK as long as his program doesn’t get cut. As long as he keeps his job we’ll be fine for a couple months. I hate dipping into our reserves too much though.
Jobs are never safe. Ever. The company I contract for has never laid anyone off and its possible they won’t but because I’m essentially a consultant so I’m easy to kick to the curb.
Ugh.
I had a similar paradigm before it was shattered by my manager at my last company. Keep building cash, that is a VERY smart thing to do now. The bottom line is you need to have a plan if the sh!t hits the fan. The depth and length of this downturn is going to be much longer than other recessions, simply because the boost from consumer spending is no longer there–i.e., no more cash out refi’s to boost consumer spending and hence GDP growth.
I feel for you folks since I’m self employed so nobody can let me go, but I’m already seeing a decrease in volume through my office since I live in a rural area where a lot of people don’t have extended health care coverage that covers chiropractic. They’re worried about their jobs or businesses and are cutting back on everything. But my wife has a very secure job as a teacher with lots of seniority and we don’t have much debt or live an extravagant lifestyle. My son is in college, but he will be financially OK since I began saving/investing for that at his birth. Still, there will be no new tri bikes for us this year.
I feel for you folks since I’m self employed so nobody can let me go, but I’m already seeing a decrease in volume through my office.
Yup… a customer just emailed me and canceled his order because he lost his job. I expect to see a lot more of this. Wishing now that we hadn’t bought that land 2 years ago… that is $9k per year I’d rather not spend right now.
Considering my boss and her boss were both layed off 8 weeks ago and my company is splitting into I don’t know how many pieces in the next few weeks, yeah, I’m streesed out. Yes, I work for Citigroup. Our stock is now trading ar $4 a share. 12 years ago I was stoked when we split again after going over $120/ share.
Sucks but I’m still employed!!
Dave
I’m a government employee. My employer is very short-staffed, so there are no fears of layoffs. In fact, quite the opposite. We are hiring, perhaps not as actively as in the past, but still hiring. We are barely keeping up with natural attrition (retirements, resignations, etc).
I feel for those of you in the private sector. Good luck.
Hmmm…maybe I’ll go into government work. Might not pass the background check though.
All I can do is make sure my resume is updated, stash as much cash as possible and cross my fingers.