I am a Information Security Risk Manager for a Public Accounting firm where we specialize in doing a a lot Information Security Co-Sourcing along with actual auditing and consultant (one off ) projects and have noticed I guess about a 70 percent drop in new projects. I am wondering generally speaking how much has your business or work been affected by the recession?

I voted the first one as, despite the fact I voluntarily quit to pursue a new job, the company (was going and) eventually went bankrupt. Saw the writing on the wall and had to leave.

What Job? Thanks GW B.

I'm done at Wabash due to contract length. A lot of faculty searches have been postponed or canceled this year. I've got something lined up, so I feel lucky.

After our Q1 results, Wall Street was pissed that we made slightly less money than last year but still made a healthy profit. As we're already working on a merger and purging ~30K jobs, everyone in the company got a pay cut rather than more layoffs. Let's not get me started on this topic... (tho I feel a lot more for those who have lost their job as I realize our pay cut is nowhere near 100%)

SI

I was laid off (along with the rest of my department) late last year. So it's been pretty significant.

I am now back with the same compay as a contractor for now, but we'll see what happens.

After our Q1 results, Wall Street was pissed that we made slightly less money than last year but still made a healthy profit.

That's the shit that sucks ass. We thought you should make $50.1M, but you made $50M so, you need to cut 1,000 jobs.

It hasn't really affected my job yet, but it still might. My last client was purging right and left, although they still wanted to re-up me for 2009. I chose not to for totally unrelated reasons and am now on a shorter term project that is scheduled to wrap up in about a month. So we'll see what happens then, but to this point everyone in my company is 100% utilized so I'm not super worried.

No difference at all for me. In fact, my housing values are good where we are and other than hearing doom and gloom from both sides we haven't been affected.

I chose "Not much difference" since that's the closest to "No change at all".

That's the shit that sucks ass. We thought you should make $50.1M, but you made $50M so, you need to cut 1,000 jobs.

Yeah, our CEO had the gall to basically ask us to thank him for not cutting jobs because since our profit was down 20%, Wall Street would be asking where the 20% work force reduction was. That's a stupid straw man if ever I heard one, but I digress.

Now the one thing I appreciate is that we could have cut jobs, too. However, they already are doing that as part of a merger and instead they had everyone take a pay cut. This includes our CEO who magnanimously cut his pay a double digit percentage of his salary... which turns out to be around 1% of his total compensation.

Needless to say, we had a lot of complaining about this whole thing last week but that mostly ended when the grim job reaper went through and axed a bunch of people at the building I work (we're contractors)... well, it was sobering.

This is just going to be another round of our jobs getting leaner in this country and the jobs being shipped out or eliminated. Just watch- we're on the edge here with benefits. They're already getting skimmed back and the only reason they aren't gone is because they're expected if you go to a large company. 401K matching is getting cut back or even eliminated.

Just wait because this is on the way- some huge company is going to go "we can save $10K+ per worker if we just eliminate health care" and there will be a huge uproar when it happens. That company will be in the news and it will take a huge black mark against itself by doing this. But soon, others will do it and it will become the norm. In 10-20 years, no one will get company-based health care. Maybe we'll get something stupid like "here's a $300 per month health stipend" when COBRA costs twice that. And you think that any nationalized health care system is going to be stupid if implemented now. Just wait until Congress is backed into a corner and has to act because no employers offer it any more and it keeps going up at astronomical rates.

After another purge or two like this, people are going to wonder where our middle class and buying power went in this country. All that wealth is flowing uphill- from 5 or 50 or 5000 middle class people up to one or a few of the rich. And then it's torches and pitchforks time when no one can eat or live except the super wealthy...

SI

I definitely got lucky. At my previous job last year (IT/database developer), I was close to being the 1st option, but instead they just cut my hours in half. That sucked for a while, but a co-worker gave me a lead that eventually became this job (Data Conversion Engineer).

And considering that this job is paid for by a state's educational budget (we collect and convert the state's education data for the U.S. Dept. of Education), we're not seeing much a downturn in this business. In fact, business is more likely going to increase with the new stimulus package.

All the Managers, VPs and higher have taken between a 3 and 15% pay cut at my company (3% for me). We still had over 150 layoffs in the US and it would have been a lot more had our executives not stepped up and taken the pay cut.

We're raw materials manufacturing, though, so we usually get impacted well before everyone else. As soon as anyone is scared, they start burning through inventory and our orders suffer. Then again, we're usually the first to see it get better and it seems our orders will be at a sustainable level by the summer (if things go as expected). It will be tight until then.

My company has grown from about 300 to 450 employees in the last year and will be adding another 100 this year. I've been given what almost seems to be a blank check for tech spending this year as well.

So, none of the above?

Granted, my company is a very "green" place that focuses on helping large organizations conserve energy. Difficult to hand pick a better spot to have landed in.

Sigh, I work for some Universities and we've been hit fairly hard by the downturn, both in terms of state revenue and endowments. Add to that the decrease in NIH funding and it hasn't been a banner year. My mom was laid off and hasn't found a job in 7+ months...she is too young for Medicare/Medicaid, can't afford Cobra, and is probably too old to find a good job.

Government employee (analyst/developer) and things are ok.

We are down roughly 40 people and they will not be replaced. Running pretty thin but getting the work done and trying to save the state some money.

Lots of extra hours right now to get things done.

Hmm, tough question to answer. My company obviously is selling less software then before, and that also means less new projects being started and us spending less money on new projects. We also are only hiring new people to fill holes in certain positions that are deemed "mission critical roles".

For me personally, this economy hasn't really changed much. I had high job security prior, and if anything feel that it is even higher now. Thanks to various new government requirements on corporations the past few years, I am up to my neck in various network security implementation procedures and we easily do not have enough people to do the amount of work that is required by the government. That is only going to continue to increase from the sounds of things as well.

I work in higher ed and my job was actually added to the docket here. There is some belt tightening going and I'll be going the consulting route before too long, but...only because of some pre-existing relationships.

The University's been hit by budget cuts which I'm sure aren't helped by the recession. At least I can count my blessings in that I still have a paid assistantship and hope I have it next year as well. Otherwise, I may not finish because I can't afford it without it.

We have fear of layoffs anging over our heads and it really makes no sense. We have a slowdown but there has even been articles recently on our company which mentions how well we are doing during this downtime. I have a feeling this will be used as the excuse to finally move all of our development and QA to India. That will be the company shooting itself in the foot though as most everything that comes out of those offices has to be redone before it can go out the door (though it has passed their QA testing).

While it hasn't affected me at this point much there is the definite threat. Because of that I have scheduled a trip next week to go see the Phillies play the US and Canadian teams in spring training. I wanted to get a couple days of peace and relaxation without having to worry about the job.

I had my pension cut and no COL or raise for this year (about 5.6k).
No layoffs here at work, but I know about a dozen or so people who have been laid off. Some are going to lose their house. People I know that were the "odd" job types of people (painters, movers, construction) cannot find any work at all.

I'm fortunate to work for the City of Seattle performing drainage and wastewater GIS data maintenance. Basically, unless people stop flushing or paying their utility bills, my job is pretty safe. That being said, my department is, and probably always will be, understaffed.

My whole department is being outsourced to Malaysia. Some have already been let go. My job is scheduled to be outsourced on August 1st.

Personally, I got a significant raise last October and my personal finances are not at all a concern.

Our farm is bleeding pretty good right now though. Government price support kicked in and we're collecting a welfare check but that will only cover about a month's production for us.

We are in good graces with our banker at least. Somebody has to be able to get through this. Plenty of farms couldn't make it go when prices were good/high. Those are the ones that will be selling out soon.

I feel very fortunate that I left LSU's Med School 2 1/2 years ago and became a full time state employee. LSU is cutting staff like crazy, private hospitals/clinics are also cutting staff. But with the passage of the stimulus package, working for the state appears to be a fairly good place to ride out the next few years with no projected cuts this year. Then again, Jindal could always surprise me..

Edit: Then again, it has had some effect on me because my mom was laid off and I have been paying her Cobra coverage for her for about 4 months now.

I have not seen any changes here where I work. I feel very lucky and feel absolutely horrible for the people who have lost their jobs or have had their pay or hours cut and for, really, anyone else who has been affected by all of this.

Working for the Census Bureau, the economy has ironically been good for us as we have to hire a ton of people.

It's good to see other GIS people doing ok.

No change yet working for the government.

And while the stimulus package scares the bejesus out of me it has certainly benefited my job security, as long as there's SOME kind of rebound by 2010.

I work in the housing industry so you can see where this is going ...

My office has lost almost 50% of its positions (about 24 at the peak) through layoffs and attrition and has rolled back salary and eliminated 401k contributions. We planned for a rainy day but have taken a double hit with the market downturn we lost money in our investment accounts. Plus, there will be more changes to come -- no doubt about that one.

I'm fortunate to work for the City of Seattle performing drainage and wastewater GIS data maintenance. Basically, unless people stop flushing or paying their utility bills, my job is pretty safe. That being said, my department is, and probably always will be, understaffed.

I did not know there was someone else here working in GIS and utilities. I've been doing both for 20 years. Since we are a four-service utilities, we have had some cutbacks due to lack of housing developments (water tap fees pays a good portion of our water budgets). But for me in IT and GIS, no change since the company as a whole is always looking for ways to automate and do things better. That's where I come in.

I did not know there was someone else here working in GIS and utilities. I've been doing both for 20 years. Since we are a four-service utilities, we have had some cutbacks due to lack of housing developments (water tap fees pays a good portion of our water budgets). But for me in IT and GIS, no change since the company as a whole is always looking for ways to automate and do things better. That's where I come in.

Yeah, I feel very lucky to have stumbled into GIS while at UW. Also, I guess my position has been affected due to the slowing of housing and commercial development. I work mainly on side sewer site plan permits. A year ago, we would receive roughly 300 permits per month. Now, not so much. It's fine though, considering our backlog of over 10,000 permits.

Yeah, I feel very lucky to have stumbled into GIS while at UW. Also, I guess my position has been affected due to the slowing of housing and commercial development. I work mainly on side sewer site plan permits. A year ago, we would receive roughly 300 permits per month. Now, not so much. It's fine though, considering our backlog of over 10,000 permits.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Even though we have to do more with less (due to an aging workforce), all departments have been working on their backlogs and trying to put improved processes in place before things turn around again. That's why I have to criticize the federal govt's intent on improving utilities infrastructure. Any funds or grants would just get added to the bottom of the pile, not only because of the backlog, but there just isn't enough qualified people to hire. We have been doing very well the past few years in upgrading our wastewater infrastructure but it came after some bad spills.

As long as you guys keep buying games to soothe your pain in these troubled times, my company will continue to do just fine...

Work in the aircraft industry currently(Private jets and props), so I've seen pretty significant layoffs. Luckily I work in the spare parts division doing IT-related work so I'm better off than most people in the industry.(Seeing cuts of about 30% at all the nearby companies).

Still seeing a significant cut to our funding, so in a few months who knows where I will stand. Really no options in the area currently as everything here is driven by the aircraft industry.

Work for the one of the biggest healthcare providers in the US in an IT role. We have gone from on Monday everything being ok, to Wednesday taking a 10% cut in hours/pay across the whole department, to Friday having 10 people laid off with more to come. Pretty stunned how quickly it has happened, at the beginning of the month I would have said we were untouchable. For everybody that does survive the cuts, department wide hiring freeze and no raise/bonus for 2009.

To be fair, the vast majority of the people we insure are the kind of blue collar workers hit the hardest by a recession, so it really shouldn't have come as too much of a surprise. Rumors that the budget has been cut by 50%, which is an absolutely astounding figure even taking that into account.

I work for a piping solutions manufacturer and we've seen the numbers dip roughly 20% from first month last year to this year. That said, core numbers are up compared to that time. However, I am very worried about the next 3-6 months as there is essentially nothing new coming out. Contractors have started cutting back and are trying to get jobs in ahead of schedule so they can maximize billing prior to any jobs being put on hold/cancelled.

The union workers are quite worried due to layoffs at jobs.

None of the above?

Feeling the pinch, my company let go tons of its workforce, meaning I had more work, and a little more job security. Then a couple title companies went kaput, including the #3 market leader, and orders shot up big time--but the cap is still on new hires (or very limited re-hiring).

Result? Stressed Chief Rum.

Of course, I forgot about my second job, a supplemental part time job serving. That has definitely been hit. People just aren't going out much, and restaurants are offering tons of deals to get people in the door.

I work for a small, young company that is being backed by a larger, wealthier company (some of you were close to taking our historical tour a few months ago). Sales are down in the tourism industry, but this spring will tell us a lot since that's when most people make their holiday plans. We've been told that we need to make something happen by 2010, but who knows? I keep telling myself that in recent history these recessions end faster than predicted. Let's hope.

I work in the telecommunications industry - we've had a small number of layoffs in my immediate area, but I'm not really worried about losing my job yet. Our raises were cancelled for this year but we are still getting yearly bonuses, so things aren't too bad.

I'm part owner of a metal finishing shop (plating chrome, electroless nickel, ect.) and the past month and a half have been real slow. From my understanding, manufacturers are still making parts - just not going out for process because they have no orders. We're a small shop (I have about 15 employees) and this company has never laid anybody off in the 27 years in business. We're not at the point of layoffs but we don't know where to go if this continues. I do have to say this shop is spotless and soon we're going to working a new coat of paint on our walls...

With this country and others looking for cleaner energy we have been booming of late since we build and design an important component for a nuclear power plant. Also we have a lot of Navy jobs that are keeping us busy. All in all I think we are going to hire close to 100 to 150 people this year.

I'm in a similar boat with a couple of other people in this thread. I'm in a government job, so no difference to me. I'm not a fan of the administration or the stimulus bills, but it could easily be argued from a selfish perspective that the increase in gov't spending has bolstered my project load. I still would have preferred that those bills would not have been passed.

I work for a small, young company that is being backed by a larger, wealthier company (some of you were close to taking our historical tour a few months ago). Sales are down in the tourism industry, but this spring will tell us a lot since that's when most people make their holiday plans. We've been told that we need to make something happen by 2010, but who knows? I keep telling myself that in recent history these recessions end faster than predicted. Let's hope.

:rant:

i'm still mad I couldn't get people to commit to going on that tour with me

In some respects you could argue the recession has helped my job.

In brief, we do outsourced marketing for smaller money managers (marketing them to big penion plans, etc). The big plans still have money and have to put it somewhere. And all of our clients (for various reasons) are absolutely destroying their benchmarks in terms of outperformance, so they're getting a lot of notice and interest for that. The one thing it has done a little is slowed down the flow of new allocations of money, but if we can get maybe one win and just hold on until things open back up a little, we should actually come out of this real good. I hope.

I'm in the financial industry, but our company hasn't been hit with any layoffs yet. They froze salaries this year across the board, slashed development budgets and let almost all of the contractors at the company go so, will be interesting to see the next step although, we have had one reduction about 5 years ago and the first people to go were low performers, then excess management. I'd assume they would follow the same path again and thankfully I am not in either of those groups.

The bad thing is, in our department, they just don't see to have a plan of what they are going to do now that the developers are gone. I primarily identify code that is incorrect, write up the specs and pass it over to 2-3 contractors to fix. Now those contractors are gone so, guess I'll be coding, fixing, testing and reviewing all the code myself.

Interesting some of the responnses from people in various industries and it appears for many of us white collar professionals the recession has hit us too hard at this point excluding those who have been laid off. When I think about our situation for me it is not bad since though my company is not getting many new contracts I am consider the SME in my field and have a lot of job security (knocks on wood) and IT security is fairly easy finding really well paying opportunities. Some times from adversity comes opportunity at least from what I have experienced.

Uhm, were is the option for "things have gotten better?"

Repo's are good for business for the most part, since we sell them. Sure the prices have dropped, but down here it's not as huge of a deal as in other locations. A lot of our money comes from the BPOs and inspections we do though, and those have gone up as well. Refinancing and people in pre-foreclosure has come in some pretty big spurts a few times over the last year.

The Feds could hurt us trying to help everyone else though. We will see how things play out.

argggg.... I just had to tell my employees (15 of them) that we're cutting 1/5th of their salary as we are going to four 8 hour days. I know it's better than laying off some of the guys but it really sucks seeing their faces when I told them the news. God hope this economy gets better before it gets worse :(

Software Engineer.

We had 2 rounds of layoffs (50% in total). Eliminated 401K matching. 1 week shutdowns in Dec and March (and word is again in June if we are still around). 10% salary cuts and we had our vacation cut by 1 week/year.

My office had well over 100 people in it a couple of years ago. It is down to 10 now. The lights turn off several times during the day because they are on motion sensors and there is no one walking around to 'reset' them. We don't pay any vendors. We don't even have coffee here anymore! My guess is that we go bankrupt on April 2nd or 3rd (current quarter ends Mar 31).

I'm a software engineer at a rather large company (not a software company, though), and there have been A LOT of layoffs thus far and rumors are going around that there will be at least one more round of them. I don't personally know anyone who has been laid off though - the software people appear to be relatively safe.

On a personal level, though, it has had a rather large effect. The project that I've spent the past two years working on had their funding cut dramatically, so I had to catch on with another project. The new project isn't willing to keep me on virtually so that my fiance and I can move back to where she's from (Big Island of Hawaii), whereas the old project was willing to do so. So, we're stuck in Seattle thanks to the complete lack of a job market in Hawaii, especially in the tech industry.

I'm in sales, so while my job isn't in jeopardy I'm standing to make a good amount less than in previous years. At least if Q2-Q4 are the same as Q1 has been thus far.

Layoffs have happened, but as long as I stay above the profitable line (which I'm over but not by a ton) I'll be ok.

The kicker is, people that were let go here before, say, 10/08, received a bomb severance package to the tune of 1 month per year of employment. Ours was just cut to a flat 2 weeks should we be let go. The real bastard about that is the previous people who were let go were all sales people cut for underperformance. So those of us who have actually made the company money are not going to reap much reward for having done so (well, besides the better commission checks of course)

I'd say I've been rather lucky.

The company I work for is in the business of sending people on vacation. I found out last week that I will be getting 90% of a 10% annual salary bonus and I found out today that I got a 2% raise starting March 1.

Things don't look too bad, but we did less business in January then we have the last 8 years, but met projections.

I feel for all of the folks losing jobs. When people bitch about things I work, I remind them that shit could always be worse.

argggg.... I just had to tell my employees (15 of them) that we're cutting 1/5th of their salary as we are going to four 8 hour days. I know it's better than laying off some of the guys but it really sucks seeing their faces when I told them the news. God hope this economy gets better before it gets worse :(

Does any of the govt stimulus bill affect folks that you would do jobs for? City/Building infrastructure?

I work for Tribune Company and we're currently in bankruptcy. The newspaper biz has been bleeding to death for the past 3-4 years, but things have really taken a downward turn the past year, year-and-a-half. Lot's of downsizing. My department is to the point if they cut any more staff, they might as well shut it down and outsource the work.

The paper I work for used to be in all out circulation knife fight with the Palm Beach Post to the north and Miami Herald to the south. The way we're cooperating now, to survive...it wouldn't surprise me to eventually see one mega paper emerge called the Sun Post Herald.

I work for Tribune Company and we're currently in bankruptcy. The newspaper biz has been bleeding to death for the past 3-4 years, but things have really taken a downward turn the past year, year-and-a-half. Lot's of downsizing. My department is to the point if they cut any more staff, they might as well shut it down and outsource the work.

The paper I work for used to be in all out circulation knife fight with the Palm Beach Post to the north and Miami Herald to the south. The way we're cooperating now, to survive...it wouldn't surprise me to eventually see one mega paper emerge called the Sun Post Herald.

Ah the Trib. My first ever layoff came courtesy of them, eight and a half years ago.

Here at the OG we've slowed down a bit, but not nearly as much as most casual dining restaurants. Overall, we're still going very strong as a company and I don't worry about our future.

Ah the Trib. My first ever layoff came courtesy of them, eight and a half years ago.

Which publication? Or were you with one of their broadcast stations?

Which publication? Or were you with one of their broadcast stations?

I worked with the LA Times. I was under the Times-Mirror syndicate umbrella when the Trib came in and bought up TM. Assured everyone for a few months that their jobs were safe (yada yada yada), but sure enough about half year after taking over, TRB decided the Times would be a "cosmopolitan" paper, and no longer do the local stuff. So 200 community paper stuff on their keisters, including little ole South OC cub reporter moi.

I did get a sweet package going from TM stock to TRB, and then a decent severance package.

We were just on the front page of the Boston Globe(at least online) for how much we plan on hiring this year and the jobs we are creating nationally outside New England. I was talking to someone in HR, she said the article pretty much killed her day. Nothing but cold calls from people inquiring about jobs.

Company of a little over 400 people, will be interesting to see where we will be in 5 years.

only a couple of weeks after my company announced they would lay off 375 (out of maybe 950 employees), they announced that they might instead shut the plant down and expand annual vacation. The plant is already set to shut down from July 20th to August 7th, but this will probably be expanded to some point in June with no idea to when in August.

Still not a definite layoff per se, but will make the Summer vacation quite a bit quieter than usual. No big spending plans for us this Summer.

FM

Oh, yippee.

My staff worked their asses off over the holiday and managed to pull sales increases of +20% over last year for the Christmas season. Then the city decided to spend some money to get an early start on road construction this season, and their first project is expanding the road outside our store...which necessitated cutting our parking lot off from the road for three months. The only access to our bookstore is the access road behind the neighboring supermarket, and we had to close our cafe drive-thru lane. In three weeks sales have plummeted from 110% of last year to 70% of last year. We had brought our concerns up when the project was announced and had thought the project would a) be started in July and b) be done in stages that would cut us off for less than a week. It turns out that because of the recession, the work was farmed out to a private company that would do it cheaper and start earlier, but they won't save money by parcelling out the project, so we get screwed.

We'll survive, but I really don't have the foot traffic right now to justify a full staff. So I'm probably going to lose at least two people I want to keep to better hours at a competitor.

Plus you people keep bumping the fucking Kindle thread. :mad: