How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

[SBell]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I own an Aerospace/Defense electronics manufacturing business. We've grown 23% this year and expect 25% growth next year. We're well positioned to maintain our business level even if defense spending cuts come down the line. in this environment, balancing reinvesting for growth and staying extremely lean and conserving cash is tricky.

We employee 50 people and the most difficult part is seeing how disconnected they seem to be from what is going on. I'm sure they all have family or friends who are directly affected, but I don't see a huge shift in attitudes or habits yet. I don't think many can grasp how severe the next couple of years are going to be.

[don]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I spent 30 years in construction of one sort or another and I'm glad I'm out. Started an electrical business when interest rates were in the stratosphere but did okay. As above comment, there's something to be said for starting in bad times and making it. In some ways worse part of construction was peaking boom times. Every half ass journeyman and his brother was "stepping out" and giving contracting a go. Way too many no-nothing bidding until the inevitable downturn purge. Most of them went in a heartbeat.

Wish we could see the same do-or-die reality in the zombie financials on federal 'life' support

I do keep in touch with some old contacts in construction and it's extremely bad. Federal money is best, followed by shaky state and local. Private commercial construction simply isn't happening. I know a job superintendent that works for a firm that has a casino as one of its partners. No website, apparently no advertising, just federal work. :cool: No cash flow problems either, the bane of construction work. Another friend works as a super on a state prison expansion in Florida. These are the guys I know that are working full time.

I've been doing construction defect consulting for the last 10 years. Things are slow. I expected a typical tsunami of construction defect litigation, which follows every boom, but it hasn't happened. Trumped by the bad economy. Insurance carriers, I'm told, are staying as in-house as they can with their lawyer needs. I've only heard of one lawyer layoff to date.

My daughter works in bio-tech in the SF bay area. The $100k Xmas party has been canceled. Forget about the annual bonus. Nobodies complaining.

[bpr]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

Our bank has notified my company that their position is strong, (they had no exposure to exotic products and we are not in a RE bubble center of the US) and our line of credit is not going to be affected should we need it.

We are right in the thick of it as a business — the investment divisions of international banks are our clients, and we have been seeing fund closures since early in the year.

The companies that make it through this are going to be much stronger, even if its five or ten years before we're out of the woods. This is a time when it really pays to have strong relationships, and we have been right there for stressed out clients to beat deadlines for them and make things easier for them than our foreign competitors would. This was, of course, a lot easier at GBP:USD 2:1. A weaker dollar would help us a lot.

[crashandburn]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

the most difficult part is seeing how disconnected they seem to be from what is going on. I'm sure they all have family or friends who are directly affected, but I don't see a huge shift in attitudes or habits yet. I don't think many can grasp how severe the next couple of years are going to be.

I agree completely! Lots of people I know have no clue how bad this is/or will get. I only learned through my own troubles, but what a wake-up call it's been. When it hits them it's like a ton of bricks and there will be a lot of anger. Makes me nervous for our country.

People affected I know:
-relative lost job in luxury retail (best in industry - but no customers)
-friend's husband's company going bankrupt (yachts)
-my parents living on a now-defunct golf course in Florida - who knows what their future holds
-sister lost job in housing business

People I know who are unaffected:
-many in education
-many in medical fields

[phirang]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I've seen a total COLLAPSE (like 95% laid-off) in the business development staff of a major international power project developer.

It's BAD BAD BAD.

Layoffs also at a major pharma co.

The only safe haven is underground, apparently!

[algerwetmore]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I am retired; so far my pension is stable, but both of my sons, with college degrees, are struggling. The unemployment in Jackson county (MI) is reported at 9%, but it is much higher because many people are partially employed, without benefits and many long term unemployed have given up.
There have been some recruitment companies from Wyoming trying to get Michiganders to move, but trying to sell your house is a difficult, if not possible manuever.
My brother works for a private plastics manufacturer in Florida. He tells me that business is really tough. Their management team is having a
payless "February" to help with cash flow.

[Chomsky]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

Well, one of the two bellwether sales just concluded (Sotheby's). It was a disaster, with 40% of the lots unsold, and most of the rest around or below the low estimate. The best material sold and did fine, the rest tanked. Like other asset classes, there is a flight to quality in art, too, in turbulent economic times.

[strittmatter]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I own a water well drilling/well service firm. No oil and gas, just water. Six months ago I decided to pull the trigger on the purchase of a new drilling rig and related equipment - which when compared to the capacities of my old equipment - would allow us to bid on larger well projects, ones that the older/smaller equipment can't handle. Doing this has turned out to be our saving grace thus far. The "bigger stuff" is still happening and I have projects contracted/booked up through approximately April.

My homebuilder and construction buddies, at the time, looked at me as if I had completely flipped my lid. Furthermore, the market that the old rig was bound to (mostly new rural home construction) has been bone dry for several weeks.

I am nowhere close to being a hot shot savvy visionary or anything of the sort. What I really am is a 2nd generation well driller and a 4th generation peanut farmer. I never dreamed of having to make such a "sink or swim" contrarian type decision - and I DID wake up in a cold sweat for many a morning.

I am posting this because - I am thankful as ever for fortunately having become obsessively tuned in to the likes of Itulip and a few others several months back, for the ongoing education and wake up call - which is honestly where the majority of the credit is due - in my case.

So many individuals in my area are yet clueless/oblivious to what all's going on here, and too many are scratching their heads in wonder as to the sudden-stop enviornment that they all of a sudden woke up in.

Thanks to everyone for all the input - priceless.

[SBell]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

Our bank has notified my company that their position is strong, (they had no exposure to exotic products and we are not in a RE bubble center of the US) and our line of credit is not going to be affected should we need it.

We do our corporate banking with a Credit Union here in Arizona. They recently told us that if we needed to increase our credit line it wouldn't be possible. The reason they cited is that the State regulatory agency says that their concentration of commercial lending is too high and that they need to focus on their charter- consumer and auto loan lending. The brilliance of the state - "don't make loans for productive business activity but rather make more auto and consumer spending loans" - is sometimes amazing.:rolleyes:

So we are currently shopping for a new bank...

[goadam1]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

It seems that only construction is hit hard so far.

I own a company related to advertising. Last year was down about 20%. I think advertising has been in recession for over a year. I don't have any debt and plan on doing only necessary upgrades in 2009 (you are welcome, apple). I already made many business changes related to equipment and debt in 2007.

I think it will be a rough year in 2009. But I do have to run my business with caution but without assuming a complete collapse.

[goadam1]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

It's too bad that the global warming thread is more popular than this one.

[peterchristopher]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I used to work as one of the two IT/Tech recruiters for a local staffing firm here in Boston. Business was great until October, which is when I left. I just spoke with my former colleague, however, and was surprised at how quickly things changed only a couple of weeks after my departure.

Not surprising for a recruiting firm to get hit this hard I guess (I have been following this site and other contrarian sites for a while), but what surprised me was the speed with which business dropped off. When I left I was actively working on filling 5 jobs and there were probably another 5-10 I could have worked on if I had the time. Now my former colleague tells me there is 1. Lack of business is not something I had ever experienced there. There was always too much business and my main worry was usually about disappointing clients who counted on recruiting firms to find new hires.

I also figured my former employer would be sheltered a bit because most of their clients are small businesses and startups in the high-tech space, many with low operating costs. We purposely stayed away from the large companies that started laying people off months ago.

The funny part is I thought this would happen earlier and had been planning to leave since January, but didn't come across a good opportunity to do so until this Fall. Now I am happily employed at a small software startup in Davis Sq that sells SEO services to bloggers while I launch my own company on the side. Blogging is not a bad way to make some extra cash during a recession, and for now my new employer is doing great.

[rj1]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I work in the states for a NASCAR race team in the position of research engineer. Things are bad and a lot of folks have been laid off already. Several teams have shut down, others have merged, and some are limping through the off-season looking for sponsorship.

In a way a thoroughly unnecessary industry like racing is among the first to take a hit as sponsors and fans cut frivolous expenditures. OTOH there is also an escapist quality to sports that will keep the doors open in very tough economic times.... even if in a more modest form.

Will

I'm a big race fan and an engineer as well. I helped design a sportscar chassis to race and plan on racing USAC and other assorted events in the Midwest starting next year. Welcome to the forum.

NASCAR was heavily way oversaturated. You're right it's an unnecessary industry, but part of the problem is treating it like an industry to start with. It's just a bunch of guys entering cars to race a set distance. All racing orgs throughout the world would be in better shape if they remembered that.

[PHS]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I serve as a United Church of Christ pastor in central Pa. So far, weekly giving continues to keep pace with last year's figures. 2009 pledges/commitments are overall comparable to 2008. However, energy costs are up significanly since 2006, i.e.- 100%.

[FRED]

Re: How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer

I'm a big race fan and an engineer as well. I helped design a sportscar chassis to race and plan on racing USAC and other assorted events in the Midwest starting next year. Welcome to the forum.

NASCAR was heavily way oversaturated. You're right it's an unnecessary industry, but part of the problem is treating it like an industry to start with. It's just a bunch of guys entering cars to race a set distance. All racing orgs throughout the world would be in better shape if they remembered that.

Delighted to have both of you here. The phrase "It's just a bunch of guys entering cars to race a set distance" is one 99 out of 100 people in finance need to remember as well. Welcome!