Lay Offs...

[BrooklynRider]

Hey-

I got laid off from my job today. Thankfully, I am heading to Curacao in the morning for a week long sunny vacation.

Has anyone else been laid off lately? Just wondering how the Great Depression of 2006 is hitting everyone else.

[DKNY617]

Haven't been laid off, but thats cause I never had a job to begin with, been looking for 3 months and have foud NOTHING. College graduate and all.

Sorry to hear about you being laid off. :(

[TREPYE]

^^Hey man, sorry to hear that. I was laid off once (from my first real job) and just considered it as one long-ass vacation. I had been working/going to school without more than a week off at a time since Junior High summer vacation so the extended time off was a welcomed rest. Woke up late, watched TV, one thing I did lots of was spend time on the internet and consiquently I discovered this website....

Nonetheless enjoy Curacao!

[Merry]

Hey BR, I'm really sorry to hear that.

The consequences of the disgusting greed that's caused all this are far-reaching.

Some employees where I work, including me, have had their hours reduced. Most of our clients are cutting costs and it's hitting us significantly.

It's all happened so fast.

I hope you have a wonderful vacation, BR. All the best on the job front when you return. Keep us posted.

[brianac]

Bad luck with the job BR.

Hope you bounce back quickly.

In the meantime, enjoy your vacation.

http://www.crusadertravel.com/worldwide/caribbean/images/habitat_curacao1.jpg
Curacao.

[stache]

My income dropped 17K last year from the prior year. :( I am currently working a three day week for the time being. :( :( :(

[Alonzo-ny]

Sorry to hear BR, enjoy that beautiful vacation!

[Derek2k3]

Sorry to hear BR. Most of my friends who have just graduated are being laid off too. I recently got my hours cut to 4 days a week.

The craigslist arch/engineering job posting section has been really skimpy lately. A year or two ago there would be 50+ postings a day, now there are never more than 10.

Anyways, enjoy your vacation, everything will be back to normal when you get back.

[NoyokA]

Sorry to hear about the layoff BR. I hope all the best.

[kz1000ps]

I got laid off back in January and have been surviving off of odd jobs, money from band gigs and, most recently, birthday cash (it was my 26th yesterday). I have a really good job prospect on my plate, but any income from that is still a month off...

[eddhead]

Sorry to hear it, BR. I have been out for longer than I care to post on this forum. Best advise I can give you is to enjoy your vacation, stay in contact with your friends and develop a support group of people undergoing similar circumstances. It is important to keep your spirits high and to look forward not back. You're a smart guy, and lord knows a survivor. You'll be ok.

[The Benniest]

I'm so sorry to hear that BR. :( It's just another step... you'll get through this!

Take care and definitely enjoy your vacation!

[Merry]

This week has been horrible. Since my last post, 4 people where I work have been retrenched. I could very well have been one of them, even though I've worked there longer than most. I'm very lucky -- for now. Fingers crossed.

Some of my employer's clients are being very short-sighted IMO. They're slashing costs now, but it's going to come back and bite them. In the industry I work in at least, deferred work will need to be done eventually and, no doubt, in a panicked rush. People lost will only have to be re-employed or replaced. We're going to get stressed out all over again, but for a different reason. I know what it's like to be retrenched so I won't be complaining about that after this horrible week, though.

[BrooklynRider]

Hi All-

I'm back from vacation. Although I'm not about to blow my cover here on WNY, the photo below is indeed me at Cas Abou in Curacao. That is how I spent my vacation.:) Overall, not too shabby.

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd21/Rollercoaster1/CURACAO%202009/CURACAO209.jpg

At the urging of some co-workers, I've begun a blog that will last the duration of this break from the tedium of employment. I am now...

THE VOICE OF UNEMPLOYED AMERICA :D

Check in daily for insights, idiotic rants, musings on musings, and massive philosophical contradictions. What have I go to to lose? My job? My dignity? The job is already gone. Let's see how long I can hold onto dignity...

http://vofua.blogspot.com/

[Ninjahedge]

Maybe I will sign up/log in later, but here is what I was going to post (blog comment)......

Anonymously! ;)


I guess it all depends on where you are coming from.

Being laid off can be both a good and a bad thing. Obviously it ruins your security, and if you have other obligations (such as children) you don't exactly have the option of just saying "scr3w it!!" and becoming a (true) beachcomber or a bicycle repairman.....

They just don't have good health care plans! ;)

But the good part is that it just may be the bump in the road that gets you to look at things again and see if the path you were on was one that you could stand for the next 20-30 years.

It also made it so that LOOKING for a job at that age is not as much of a stigma ("So tell me, you are 45, why are you looking for a job nmow? After all, you have only HALF your working life left and 20 years is just not enough time to learn something new!"[/sarcasm]).

I just hope that whatever comes to pass does not fall on the backs of those whose own survival not only excludes the survival of others, but tries to capitalize on their misfortune.

We shall see!

[Fabrizio]

br: unemployed or not, you've still got nice legs.

[Fabrizio]

It's been said forever but it's true: we all got to keep learning new skills constantly updating ourselves. We have to treat ourselves as individual businesses offering a service. We have to invest in ourselves. We can't take anything for granted today.

--

[Ninjahedge]

Well, most of us were brought up on the feeling that there are no pensions, and possibly no Social Security when we retire, so that is part of this.

The other being that some professions continuously see computers doing what they used to do more easily. The good thing is that a lot of monotony is removed from the job, but the bad is, SIMPLE designs are not as dependent on qualified engineers anymore.

You still need one when you want to do something different, or simply bigger scale, but the more you keep it within the "zone" the less true engineering it requires.

I predict my own profession might find it difficult to compete in 20 years or so. The only upside being that since civil engineering is NOT a profitable profession to begin with, not many software writers are striving to produce anything revoutionary for it. It will never be a "google". not only that, when your primary customer IS engineers, you do not want to alienate them before you make them obsolete... :eek:

The same probably goes for a lot of professions though. Accounting? Customer service (with a truly well engineered AI?). Writing/acting (CGI characters. Look how real they look now compared to 10 years ago. Jon compared to T2).

Hell, they have done it with machine assembly, why not with more white collar jobs?

The irony being, people would be the ones requiring these services, but putting them out of work will make them unable to buy/use them. You would think that would discourage companis from doing this, but as our Indian outsourcing shows, it is a question of who can do it first (successfully).....



Damn I can be depressing sometimes.... Maybe I should write a book.....

[The Benniest]

Job market looking grim? Start your own business like these New Yorkers
BY LORE CROGHAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

The scary job market has more New Yorkers taking employment into their own hands, launching startups they might never have begun if they still had secure paychecks.

Droves of workers are bouncing back from layoffs - or pre-empting them - by becoming their own boss. For many, the prospect of losing a job has taken away the risk factor, freeing them to follow their passion. And some are finding there is no shortage of free training and help to make sure they get it right.

Here are four stories of New Yorkers making the transition from employee to entrepreneur:

Dressed for success

At least Meki Adefris had advance warning.

She found out in December she'd be losing her job as an events and sponsorship manager at Sovereign Bank in Brooklyn Heights. She was ready when they passed out the pink slips in January.

When she got laid off once before, after 9/11, it was depressing.
"I took it much better this time," said Adefris, 35.

From her Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, living room, Adefris is launching a line of Ethiopian-inspired baby and children's clothing. Her company is called Me and Lu, the second part being her 13-month-old daughter's nickname.

The handspun cotton and brightly colored clothes are made in her homeland, where relatives helped her line up a manufacturer in Addis Ababa. She plans to start selling some items this summer, and the full line next February.

Adefris enrolled in FastTrac, a free, six-day entrepreneurial boot camp run by the city Department of Small Business Services. The program was so popular that more than 200 applicants applied for just 28 seats, prompting the agency to schedule more courses.

"FastTrac will give me more focus, and help me understand the business side of business," she said.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/03/29/amd_adetris.jpg
Meki Adetris


'Neat freak' cleans up

When Bear Stearns imploded, Apolonia Edwards knew her days as an administrative assistant were numbered, so she threw herself into the cleaning business she had going on the side.

"I had enough of job hunting in corporate America," said Edwards, 35, whose Ideal Cleaning Services specializes in clearing out pack rats' apartments and cleaning up after corpses.

"I am a neat freak," she said. "I love to clean."

The Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, resident originally began her business after a post-9/11 layoff from Deutsche Bank. The first year, she did everything herself. Now she has independent contractors clean for her, and pays them by the hour.

Edwards went to the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce for business guidance and soon found membership enhanced her credibility with potential clients.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/03/29/amd_edwards.jpg
Apolonia Edwards


Using what you know

In Buenos Aires, Maria Ruscelli was a lawyer, but she moved to Manhattan eight years ago after Argentina's economy fell apart.

Economic turmoil caught up with her again, and, in October, she lost her job as a paralegal in a Manhattan law firm.

Ruscelli didn't move this time. She launched the Iberian American Institute, where she teaches Spanish to kids in after-school programs.

Ruscelli, 44, lined up her first assignment on Monday afternoons at a Manhattan public elementary school. Then she got expansion advice from the Upper Manhattan Business Solutions Center, which is run by nonprofit Seedco.

Since starting in January, Ruscelli has seen tangible evidence of success.
"I am seeing results," the midtown resident said. "The children are already speaking Spanish."

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/03/29/amd_ruscelli.jpg
Maria Ruscelli


'Plan B' can Set U Free

Ronnelle Melwood still has her job at a Wall Street bank, but every new round of firings makes the administrative assistant more uneasy.

"People in corporate America need a Plan B, security, a safety net," said Melwood, 41.

Her safety net is Set U Free Virtual Services, a business she recently started in her spare time. If she loses her job, she'll focus on it full time.

The tiny company offers secretarial services for clients who don't want an assistant on the payroll. She does the work in her Arverne, Queens, home instead of their offices.

Melwood is learning how to run a business from StartUP, a Queens Economic Development Corp. program with workshops and a competition for grants of up to $15,000.

She's entering the contest in hopes of getting money for a laptop. "You gotta be in it to win it," she said.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/03/29/amd_melwood.jpg
Ronnelle Melwood


lcroghan@nydailynews.com

[NoyokA]

Ive seen this type of article printed in a number of places. And while starting a business now might be good for some people it'll be disastrous for many more, in a recession everything in the economy is cut back, specifically spending and financing, unless you have a solid original business idea or are starting the business as supplemental income, investing all your time and money in starting a business today is just shy of crazy.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Yeah. Those other people out of work are some of the customers you won't have.


At least it's a shared experience today. Being out of work is bad enough, but it's worse when it seems that everything else is booming.


April 4, 2009


Jobless Rate Hits 8.5% as
March Payrolls Fall by 663,000

By JACK HEALY

The American economy shed another 663,000 jobs in March, the government reported Friday, bringing the toll of job losses during the recession to 5.1 million.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the national unemployment rate climbed to 8.5 percent from 8.1 percent in February, its highest levels in a quarter-century, as employers raced to cut their payroll costs. It was the 15th consecutive month of job losses.

The figures offered a stark contrast to some recent glimmers of life elsewhere in the economy, which have buoyed stock markets and heartened hopes for a turnaround. The sharp and continuing increase in unemployment suggests that even if the downward spiral is beginning to level off, job losses are likely to keep piling up for the rest of this year and into 2010.

“The hemorrhaging of jobs has been so extreme,” said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project. “Even if the economy picks up or the contraction slows, there’s so much slack in the job market, it’s going to take a tremendous amount of time for it to recover.”

Although the Federal Reserve expects unemployment to crest near 8.8 percent, many economists say it will rise above 10 percent and will only begin to ebb after the broader economy is well on the way to recovery — a wrenching forecast for the 13.2 million people in the United States who are currently unemployed.

In all, nearly 16 percent of the people in the United States are now looking for a job, working part-time because they cannot find full-time work, or are out of work and not actively looking, the government said.

“We’re closing in on 25 million people that are underemployed in one way or another,” said Mark Zandi, founder and chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com. “It highlights the incredible breadth of the downturn.”

The agency also drastically revised the job losses in January to 741,000 from the earlier report of 655,000, but left February’s job loss estimate of 651,000 unchanged.

“There is no letup,” said James O’Sullivan, senior United States economist at UBS. “The trend has been truly dismal.”

Perhaps more troubling, economists said, forward-looking signals of the jobs market continued to tumble downward, indicating that April is likely to be another grim month. The average workweek fell to a seasonally adjusted 33.2 hours, the lowest level on record, and temporary jobs continued to shrink.

More than two million jobs disappeared in the first quarter of the year as the country reeled from the shock of the financial crisis of late 2008.

Now, as the downturn drags on and the ranks of the unemployed swell, people are beginning to languish without work. Some 24 percent of people have been unemployed for six months or more, and fewer and fewer are able to find a job after less than five weeks of looking.

Still, economists said they believed the rate of job losses would moderate slightly by summer as the government’s measures to patch up the financial system, revive consumer spending and put people to work wash through the economy.

Workers are starting to see tax credits from the $787 billion stimulus package show up in their paychecks, and government-financed projects to build bridges and repair roads are ramping up.

“The fiscal stimulus is just really starting now,” Mr. O’Sullivan said. “That’s all in front of us. We do think the weakness is going to fade in the next months.”

President Obama has promised that the stimulus plan — the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — will save or create three million to four million jobs over the next two years. But if the monthly job losses do not at least show a hint of easing by the summer, economists worry that the tentative signs of hope will burn out as businesses and consumers brace for an even more difficult and protracted downturn than they had expected.

“All these nascent signs of a better economy will fade if these jobs loses don’t abate soon,” Mr. Zandi said. “Retail’s going to weaken again, housing’s going to weaken again and the policy response will be inadequate. We’ll have to go to Plan B.”

Manufacturing companies shed another 161,000 jobs in March. The construction industry, which has been devastated by the collapse of housing sales and prices, lost 126,000 jobs. Even government, which had been adding jobs during the downturn, lost 5,000 positions as state and local governments saw their tax revenues plummet.

If nothing else, the government’s new numbers underscored the sheer sweep of the job losses. Unemployment is above 10 percent in seven states and sidelined workers from Maine to California, affecting men and women of every race, age and educational level.

“One of the defining features of this downturn is that almost everyone’s being touched in some way,” Mr. Zandi said. “It seems like every business in every industry in every corner of the country has a hiring freeze. They’re just not in the mood or position to hire. They’re not taking résumés. They’re not looking for people.”

Some groups have been hit harder than others. The unemployment rate for men was 8.8 percent, compared to a jobless rate of 7 percent for women, reflecting massive cutbacks in male-dominated professions like manufacturing. More than 13 percent of people without a high-school diploma are unemployed, compared to 4.3 percent of those with at least a bachelor’s degree.

As months pass and potential employers stop responding to query letters and e-mail messages, a sense of weary despair is growing among many without work.

A few days ago, 54-year-old Howard Leshner of Valencia, Calif., logged onto Craigslist, the online bulletin board, and posted this pitch: “Need work. Will work for free.”

Mr. Leshner said he worked for a sandpaper company, then sold electric products and cables to home-supply stores until 2000, then tried his hand as a real-estate agent. He got by selling houses, but not since the housing market collapsed in Southern California. He said his family had been living off savings and his wife’s income as he looked for work, but the closest he got was an interview with the Walt Disney Company a year ago.

“You don’t get one single response — nothing,” Mr. Leshner said. “I’m sitting here saying, ‘What am I doing? What am I doing?’ ”

The losses have been particularly acute for younger workers like Kimberly Ghorm, 23, of New Jersey. Some 14 percent of people between 20 and 24 years old are unemployed, compared with 7.6 percent of people from 25 to 54 years old, or 6.2 percent of people 55 and older.

Ms. Ghorm said she has been applying for jobs almost constantly since she graduated from Rutgers University in May 2008 with a degree in communications. She has applied to about 400 jobs, scours Internet job boards and attends career fairs and networking events, like one on Wednesday night where people looking for work were encouraged to wear a purple glow-in-the-dark bracelet to identify themselves as such. She did not get any offers.

“I’ve put myself out there,” Ms. Ghorm said. “I’ve done all that I can do. I just pray at night for something to happen.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

[Ninjahedge]

I am worried that that uneducated split will even out as the effects continue to ripple.

Example would be this, when the housing market collapsed THEY STOPPED BUILDING HOUSES. So, almost instantly, crews were laid off, suppliers felt the pinch shortly thereafter and laid off staff.

But designers like Architects, Engineers and others were still designing. The $$ for design is substantially lower than construction, and sometimes a job will finish a design and leave a hole in the ground. (It is relatively cheap to finish a design than to try and pick it up later).

But now? The ripples have been felt twice at my company, and more are probably coming. The 90's saw a cutback to the bone for many companies and that recession was nothing compared to this.

But the question comes, what do people NEED, even during recessions? Maybe not McMansions and SUV's, but what about dry pasta? Soup? Diapers? Asprin? What products will still be needed, and are we such an efficient society now that a few can provide these for everyone?

How can we remodel our society into a hybrid socialist endeavor that can (without the oversight of the federal government) enable communities to weather this out? We are at the stage now where foreclosures do not net the assets needed to recover the overall loss, so what is the point in doing that anymore?

Fire sales of homes simply are NOT a solution

We almost need to call a freeze on certain financial positions. Unfortunately this will make money flow even less, and not facilitate our economies revival.

I think some of the keys to our survival would be things that would impliment our long term survival. Renewable energy like Solar and Wind would be one of them. Investing on a civic scale for a wind farm or solar plant will EVENTUALLY save us money. It will provide jobs NOW, and lower our over cost of operations, enabling us to focus on other things.

We need to find where our $$ is going now, where we are bleeding, and how investment and change can lessen the overall burden on the taxpayer later.

BTW, how are the insurance companies doing? Ones that did not vest in idiotic things like AIG did.... I have not heard of Prudential having any real problems. What about the others? Is there some way to try and impliment a governmental insurance program for more things than just health?

How about Health and Auto?

Where is the net cost of our investments yeilding nothing appreciabble at a higher than average incidental cost?

[BrooklynRider]

Well, my experience has been that Architecture is at the top of the recession / depression mountain. There's a good and pretty clear view from that vantage point. Nothing (or very little) being designed means nothing or very little being built 6 months to a year down the line.

Without converting to my predisposition to "conspiracy" theories, there is no doubt in my mind that the public is being kept in the dark about just how bad it is.

I know a lot of folks that are out of work and, as if beingout of work isn't bad enough, there is a palpable cynicism, skepticism, and anger out amongst the folks in unemployment land.

The country as a whole would be much better letting the banks fail. I understand the multiple arguments why this simply cannot happen, but there is mistrust, disbelief, and a complete disconnect between the public and government right now.

People like Obama, but, not only aren't the problems being solved, the problems are not being honestly reported.

This country has been swindled by massive Wall Street fraud. White collar crime should, in circumstances such as these, become a capital offense, punishable by death penalty. Extreme? Yes. But, if we can use the argument that it deters violent crime, then let's use it to deter these crimes that harm far more people.

I'm being realistic when I say, "the worst is yet to come." The worst is not going to be the joblessness, but rather the backlash against government and the rich.

If you don't believe we are involved in a class war, you're not being honest about what's happening.

Black bloc, baby.

[BrooklynRider]

br: unemployed or not, you've still got nice legs.

I'll put them up for sale.

or

I'll put them up. For a price.

[stache]

Hmm, will you take food stamps? :D

[lofter1]

BR: HBO has a new series (http://www.hbo.com/events/hung/about.html) coming up. It might have the answer to your current situation.

[BrooklynRider]

I did the original pilot. I didn't have an "Anne Heche" to give me the kind of cache this guy has.

I'm trying to get mine aired on public access tv.

[stache]

Honey, that entire section of your life is 'public access' lol! :p