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

[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

...and right on cue Honda drops a bombshell and announces they're pulling out of F1.

[mmr]

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

Thankfully I was able to find gainful employment after my employer blew up, unlike my former CEO...

http://nymag.com/news/business/52603/

[jimmygu3]

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

Yes Lukester, you are quite right. For people like you and me, its our humility that makes us superior.

As if every one of your excessively logorrheic posts isn't a monument to your own towering and overweening pride.

Sorry, Luke, but Chomsky's and Basil's zingers were both hilarious and apt.

I work in the cable TV industry and I keep waiting for the layoffs to hit my company. Many media companies have recently announced layoffs (WSJ).

A good friend in commercial RE told me he thinks his company, a big player in Atlanta, is likely to go under in the next 6 months.

Jimmy

[Slimprofits]

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

I work for a bar/restaurant in a mostly rural, Northern California small town.

Business is not down compared to last year. People still want to socialize and catch a buzz. I have noticed that no one is talking about the economy anymore now that gas prices have come way down. Last summer, it was a topic for everyday.

[BiscayneSunrise]

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 just saw today that Honda is leaving Formula 1 racing. Racing is a form of diversion albeit a highly expensive one. perhaps we will see a return to less expensive and more localized minor league athletic sports teams.

As a research engineer perhaps you could shed some light I had on a theory: Racing used to be a testbed for new technology that made its' way into production. Auto technology has pretty much peaked in terms of law of diminishing return, at least as it pertains to the internal combustion engine. Racing is now just a very expensive marketing program and as you point out increasingly seen as frivolous.

[BiscayneSunrise]

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

One business segment that is doing the worst for my company currently is the marine market, and by marine I'm talking the yachts. I think the biggest we sell to is a Hatteras 44-footer. Our plant that does that has had the most layoffs throughout the company. Of course we're talking down sales to the companies that build the boats, not the yacht sellers themselves.

Some other information I've been passed along this week:

-Sales for power generation and mining are holding up well
-Chinese truck sales are down 60%

Yes, the yacht market needs to be categorized by size. I spoke with a fried who was doing selling super yachts (100 feet+) 6 months ago, business was gangbusters including people flipping yachts. Hmmmm. This sounds familiar. I am overdue a phone call to him and will see where the market stands now.

[BiscayneSunrise]

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

Sorry, Luke, but Chomsky's and Basil's zingers were both hilarious and apt.

I work in the cable TV industry and I keep waiting for the layoffs to hit my company. Many media companies have recently announced layoffs (WSJ).

A good friend in commercial RE told me he thinks his company, a big player in Atlanta, is likely to go under in the next 6 months.

Jimmy

Gentlemen,

Thanks for bringing some mirth to a rather depressing thread. Plus I liked Nickerson's comment as well. All in good fun.

[BiscayneSunrise]

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

A few days ago I spoke with a friend that is active in executive search. She said back in October it was like someone turned off a faucet. Across all industries and up and down the executive hierarchy. There is virtually no hiring of executives happening.

This is especially disturbing because it is this time of year when recruiting efforts spool up in anticipation of Q1 budget disbursements for hiring.

[thedanimal]

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

I work for an arts related non-profit. I had been looking for a new job actively before this crisis hit but I might ride it out here for a bit longer before doing so at this point. A lot of foundations base their giving rates on 3 year cycles, so we're likely to weather the storm quite well for at least a while. Maybe if I'm lucky by the time things start looking down here things will be picking up elsewhere.

This year's annual donor's campaign has definitely been slow, especially at the high end of giving.

[Jim Nickerson]

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

Gentlemen,

Thanks for bringing some mirth to a rather depressing thread. Plus I liked Nickerson's comment as well. All in good fun.

I think this is one of the more interesting threads that has been started around here in a while, and I applaud what seems to me to be some infrequent posters putting up information about their situations. All in all I am impressed at what people seem to be doing to attempt to protect themselves.

[grapejelly]

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

My wife does legal work for a big county in the US. They are cutting back, doing more in-house. The firm is hurting for the first time in many, many years. But the thing is, the county has a bunch of attorneys on payroll so they naturally want to give those people work first.

[Douglas]

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

I'm a blue collar worker in manufacturing. In a flat industry, our company was actually growing the last couple of years. We recently merged with one of our competitors, and while our company is doing well, production is leaving the facility that I work at. We're not looking at layoffs yet, but certain areas will be on shortened work weeks. I work in maintenance, my particular craft is still in high demand, and I would say that is true in general for skilled crafts. People don't seem to be as interested in working the trades any more with all the emphasis on high tech and computers. I have a feeling that might be changing in the near future. In our merger the areas that are getting job cuts are all white collar jobs in management, marketing and sales, etc. I don't see my job going away any time soon, and I feel confident in my ability to get a job regardless. One of the bad things has been that my annual raises haven't kept up with inflation over the years I've worked here, but I've been able to increase my wages by getting more skilled jobs, and working to increase my technical skills. This recession and downturn might delay my retirement some, but I don't see it affecting me too bad. My only debt is my mortgage, and house prices where I live have remained level. The recession means that I'll be able to make improvements on my house at a discount. Cash is king.

[defomcduff]

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

I'm on the academic economist job market this year, and people are saying it is probably the tightest market in 25 years (wait, does that correspond to the FIRE economy cycle??). Here is a listing of previous job opportunities that have been closed in the last month and a half alone:

http://www.aeaweb.org/joe/status_updates.php

I predict that this market will hold its title as the "worst market" for only one year until the 2009 market materializes.

[zoog]

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

...Locally, I read that Oregon's unemployment rate is rising....

This comes from a local homebuilders presentation:





I appreciate all the first-hand info people have offered in this thread. For reasons of paranoid anonymity, I don't talk about what I do for a living... not that I'm anyone special. Suffice to say it is in the "professional and business services" sector in the bar chart above. The company I work for has had a good year but the guys upstairs are quite concerned about the future. Our Christmas bonus will probably be about half the usual, and no raises next year. Our main concern is our clients ability to get funding. Some of our work has historically been "recession-proof", but I do not know if that will hold true in an extended depression.

By the way ASH, this same homebuilders presentation (got the link from local housing blog) breaks down months of housing inventory by price range and metro regions. While the overall metro is 11 months of active inventory, the worst one in their bar charts was $750,000 - $1million in Gresham/Troutdale with 246 months of supply.:eek: Perhaps you'd like a starter castle instead of a farm?;)

[ASH]

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

By the way ASH, this same homebuilders presentation (got the link from local housing blog) breaks down months of housing inventory by price range and metro regions. While the overall metro is 11 months of active inventory, the worst one in their bar charts was $750,000 - $1million in Gresham/Troutdale with 246 months of supply.:eek: Perhaps you'd like a starter castle instead of a farm?;)

Thanks for all the good local information (of use only to me! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!).

I have to say, this thread is very interesting in general, but also very depressing. I started out feeling pretty secure, what with my company's business being derived mainly from the federal government, and my position in the company being relatively secure. I ended up feeling morose and anxious, after having read so many accounts of the downturn.