Worried about Jobs

[skent]

I've been with the same company here for 21 years now, in the last two we have gone from over 1600 employees to just under 300. Moved all the production to Fla. Only thing left here is engineering. I used to worry constantly about lay-offs. Now I'll just take it as it goes - My dept has gone from a high of 12 people to three. No need to worry, I was looking for a job when I walked thru these doors. It's erie to walk thru the factory and see all the idle equipment. Much of it was auctioned off last year, all that remains are 7 environmental chambers that nobody bid on. It's only a matter of time, the work keeps dwindling, along with the stock price, sooner or later it will end.

Worried ? no, not any more, I don't look forward to starting over somewhere else (when the time comes), but we'll get by, we all will, it just boils down to having faith in yourself.

As long as I can earn a little money to put some food on the table and diesel in the tractor. . . . . . .

Steve

 

[Knight9]

DrDan,

<font color=blue>I think it is about time for "Old George" to start tightening up the tariffs on imports. Tax the hell out of foreign products.... </font color=blue> then.... <font color=blue>Do you know that most of our wood is going to Japan so if we want to buy any the prices are humongous? That's why it costs a fortune to build a house. My god I put $200 in materials for a stinking chicken house! </font color=blue>

Hmmm....interesting situation. Looks like the first 1/2 doesn't necessarily help the second 1/2!!! The US just imposed a 19.3% tax on all Canadian wood exported into the US. If you need reasonably priced wood, doesn't that seem a little self-defeating to over tax it??

Kevin

 

[TBone]

Down south we don't have much "blue chip" industry to begin with and the ones we do have are not doing well. I work for a major automotive supplier and things are getting tougher and tougher with that industry as you know.

The timber industry has traditionally been a big employer here but it is in the worst shape I have ever seen it, mostly because of imported Canadian lumber (which is subsidised by the Canadian government). I agree with DrDan on the need to tax the imports and charge everybody a decent price on the food we export instead of giving it away.

Even the minimum wage garment industry jobs are all moving below the border to countries we've never heard of because of lower wages and absolutely no government controls on pollution, health and safety, etc.

McDonalds, however, is still prospering. I had to wait in line for 20 minutes for an EggMcMuffin this morning.

 

[JonE]

Tax'em hard and make US made product artificially lower priced. As stupid as it may sound.
Like I tell the wife every year after going to 10 weddings, a dozen or so grad parties, aniverseries etc. etc. "You keep your stuff and I'll keep mine!"/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[jinman]

North TX:

Dallas - Telecom (i.e., NorTel) - Bad, 4k + layoffs
Ft.Worth - Military Aircraft - Lockheed-Martin, Good, F-22 contract for Billions with possible JSF fighter also.
Austin - Computers - Dell, business has been flat since Y2k "buy like crazy" mania is over. Normal business to improve in last quarter due to buying trends swinging back up to a normal growth pace.

Don't quote me on any of this.../w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

JimI

 

[RPM]

Lots of 'stealth' layoffs going on in the tech industry. I think the belief is that if we deny it for long enough then the recession will go away - and believe me, it IS a recession in the tech industry even if other sectors aren't affected yet.

Everyone in my industry is tightening their belts - but I continue to be amazed to see the figures for car and home sales being so high. Apparently as a nation we have the lowest average equity in our homes in history right now. The last thing we need is a drop in real estate resulting in a negative equity trap. That really makes it hard to climb out the other side of a dip.

Patrick

 

[ERNIEB]

This area took a big hit when Kelly AFB closed, and there has been some lay offs in the tech jobs, also USAA has had some problems. On the other hand, a lot of homes are still being bilt, KB Homes recently moved into the area and bought up everything they could get their hands on. Some employers are having trouble finding semi skilled and laborers. Gas prices keep worrying most people.

Ernie

 

[TerryinMD]

As I posted in another thread - WorldCom had a major layoff on Ash Wednesday of this year. The total was near 11K worldwide. They have nearly stopped all technical contractor work and have recently announced that they will be cutting back on capital expeditures for next year.

The Washington DC metro area is being hit pretty good in the private technical sector. Layoffs for WorldCom, Qwest, BBO, Nortel, PSINet. Many other mid-size technology companies have gone under.

However, the homes and office buildings continue to be built. There are jobs, but you have to look around to find them.

A year ago you had to compete to get any type of technology skill. Now you can be very selective.

Things are slow, but not terrible. Yet!! I believe that there are two problems. One, to many people have been living the good life for too long. And now, the bubble has burst. Two, the media is making a bigger deal about the state of the economy. If you tell people it is bad - they will think that it is bad.

Domino effect. Stock prices are down - buy stock. However, every day is a new bargain and you lose money!!! Take your money and put it into savings - whopty-doo, a whole 1-2% interest. Hmmm.... what to do. Next is the real estate market. Prices are high in this area. I expect a major adjustment in the near future. I really pity the poor soul who buys a $500k home and it's value drops to $350-400K and their holding a jumbo mortgage. Live in the country.... where the prices are more stable. But let's not tell everyone our little secret!!!!

 

[ejb]

Not good news anywhere as far as I can tell.

I work (self-employed) in the tech industry as a contractor.

Here is my take: the Y2K scam is coming back to haunt us big time. For about 2-3 years leading upto 12/31/1999 just about everyone in the industry was running around screaming that the sky is falling (or going to fall) and convince most of the morons that run the companies that unless they gave a blank check to IT departments to upgrade ALMOST EVERTHING to the latest and greatest technologies, from hardware and software, mainframe, routers, internet technology etc. that the company would go bankrupt on 1/1/2000.

So we had a 2-3 year *binge* of spending that was justified by the y2k scare, and the threat that any company that had any y2k problem would be sue'd into oblivion if they failed to act.

Well now just about every damn thing in every company is now only about 2-3 years old, and not much needs replacing, and it will be a while before it does, IMO.

Everthing is so darn fast, there is no need to upgrade an 600 or 800Mhz desktop to a 2Gig desktop, and there won't be a need for a while. I am a software developer, and I push my machine as hard as anyone, and I am more than happy with my 400Mhz machine with 256MB ram.

I think it is going to be a while before we climb out of this hole we have dug. At my biggest client, they have so far avoided layoffs (except a handful), but they have long since canned most of the contractors who did all the real work (programming) and now there is a boatload of project managers, analysts and managers etc all sitting around with no projects to work on 'cause nothing gets funded. Everyone is pretty sure that shoe is gonna drop soon.

Schwab, gateway, lucent, worldcom, jds uniphase, not to mention all those defunct dotcoms, when all those people stop buying goods and services, and spend all the equity they have left in their houses 'cause they can't find another job that pays nearly what they were making before, thats when we really start to fall fast. I think we are just in the beginning og this tailspin; I hope I am wrong.

Call me a cynic, but we had almost 8 straight years of the stock market going almost straightup, and IMO it will be a while before we work off the excesses.

I guess I better start making plans for a farmstand next year, no matter how bad things get, people need to eat...

 

[RichNJ]

I was self-emplyed as a computer consultant all my life. Then a year ago I started seeing things falling apart. I thought, well maybe, for the first time in my life I should get a "permanent" employee spot because when things start going bad the first people out the door are the contactors. Don't know if this was the right move but I do have a paycheck coming this Friday.