Laid off in the Playground

[BizzaroStormy]

Well, it pains me to say but due to the economy being a -1 HP and bleeding, I lost my job at a machine shop today in order to cut costs.

Granted it was only an internship which was scheduled to end today but my boss said himself that if the economy "wasn't going down the crapper" right now, that he would have been glad to hire me. Anyone else feeling the rope burn of this financial noose?

[reorith]

i'v had my hours cut from 30 a week in may to 12 in november to seven a week in the last pay period. luckily i have a new gig lined up and i start monday.

[Extra_Crispy]

I am lucky, the carreer field I am in (nurse), will probably never have problems with that. They are still asking for nurses at the hospitals.

On the other had my roommate works for the county, his job is fine but he was telling me that one department (development, mostly housing) layed off 1/2 its people and if things dont pick up in about 6 months then they are laying off another 1/2, down to 1/4 the total number.

A friend of mine has been looking for ANY job for about a year now and can not get anything mostly because of the economy.

[RTGoodman]

I graduated at the top of my class with a 3.97 GPA back in May, and it took me until December to find a job. I mean, I know a BA in History is useless, but I was not even getting called for interviews at like, fast food restaurants and places like that.

Like Extra_Crispy, though, I did finally manage to get a job that won't feel any cutbacks (Substitute Teacher), but I don't go back to work until after next week.

[Graywolf]

I'm pretty lucky to still have my job. We've had no cutback in hours, but the size of the crew I work on has shrunk from about 50 people back in September to about 18 people now.

[Z-dan]

I lost my job I was a quality inspector at a car factory, but only agency staff- and they suddenly decided to get rid of all agency staff
Now looking for a job, got an interview next week for another job in quality

[Mastikator]

I'm currently a student, but if the economy hasn't fixed itself by the time I graduate then I'm probably set anyway, system development is a service and project oriented job, and system developers are in less supply than there is demand for (and demand is increasing).

[Fredthefighter]

I'm also a student, but I am often called the richest man in Pool Hayes lane, but my parents seem to be worrying about their jobs, which makes me worry.

[valadil]

I'm pretty safe. I do web development and research at a hospital. A bunch of my friends were laid off though and only one has found work :-\

[Mr. Mud]

I'm actually very financially secure, because I just work part time at Bike Doctor to get a little 'tid bit' for college stuffs as soon as I go (in a lot of years...). But when the gas prices when up, people started to ride bikes. A lot. I mean buisness skyrocketed during those few months...

So friends, fear not, because Bike Doctor will pull America back up if it ever falls .

[CreganTur]

I'm actually doing well with the posibility of a promotion in the near future. I'm a programmer for a large financial institution, and I focus on automating manual processes (which saves a lot of time and, therefore, money), process improvement, and building new reports for some of our areas.

It's a great gig, and I love it! When I'm not working on a project I've been given carte blanche to do as much self-study as I want, which is great since I'm self-taught and have only been doing this for almost 1.5 years. Currently learning Visual Basic, which is a breeze!

[Jalor]

I'm also still a student, but I highly doubt I'll ever find a job in this crappy economy. Most everyone I know who had a job a year ago is either unemployed or can't afford gas now. I have no real skills, and I'm actually hoping the world ends on 2012 so I don't have to worry about my/the future. Times are tough.

[Morchaint]

I feel your pain PirateJesus, I too just got laid off at my job too, due to no work for the guy on the bottom rung of the bottom rung where Id been working for 3 months. jobhunting sux!

and btw. Id put the economy at -5 and bleeding and here comes that black dragon everybody vote... er HI Obama I did not see you standing there!!!

[Rutskarn]

Well shoot, who needs the Depressing Thread?

[Berserk Monk]

I'm also still a student, but I highly doubt I'll ever find a job in this crappy economy. Most everyone I know who had a job a year ago is either unemployed or can't afford gas now. I have no real skills, and I'm actually hoping the world ends on 2012 so I don't have to worry about my/the future. Times are tough.

First off, everyone has some skill. This sounds completely cliche, but you just need to realize what it is. Likewise, I'm also a student. I hope the economy's better but the time I graduate. Anyone need an illustrator or other artist, well, I work for cheap (sometimes even free).

Anyway, my feelings go out to all of you in the real world being laid off or struggling to find cash. Hope things turn around.

[BizzaroStormy]

I know that I have skills as a machinist, the only problem is that there are a lot of people that have more skill than me in the place where I live and there are really only 2 machine shops in town,

[Ishmael]

Well, I'm a student, and I have a really secure summer job that won't be leaving any time soon. Yay for being a Ranger at a Scout Ranch!

And seeing as I'm only just beginning college, and how I want to go to Law School after that, by the time I get out of the university system, the economy will likely be better off when I search for a real job. And there's always a demand for lawyers, especially in the field of environmental law, which is starting to become a rather important branch of our legal system.

[de-trick]

yep, not lost but stores closing a hour early, not sure if its just for winter or perminate. But it sucks beng student worker cause im going down from 20 hours a week to 14, which, im working 4 out of 7 days to do

[Lentava-Heppa]

Whoa. Hadn't realized that the economy is that bad in the USA (at least I assume most of you folks are from there?). Here in Finland there have been problems in just a few areas of work (a few factories have closed down. It devastates some smaller municipalities that suddenly get 30% unemployment rates or something but most of the country is fine) and other than that most companies have lowered their expectations for next year's profit.

It will strike harder, sure, but I doubt we'll be seeing anything like that.

As for the web development/marketing company that I work in (part-time), they are desperate to find more qualified people. Won't be seeing unemployment on that area any time soon. I would get a full time job there but I am still studying (and can continue my studies for quite long if the economy hints that I need to).

[The Prince of Cats]

I am lucky, even luckier than I had realised it seems.

Like a few of the others, my job is in a safe industry. I am a computer games designer and guess what people do when they are in a depression... they stay home and play games instead of going out. As a result, our industry has an increase in potential capital (i.e. Game is selling record amounts of stuff and we will see the extra cash later) and the poor performance of the pound is allowing UK studios to compete more favourably in the international market.

On the other hand, my sister cannot find a job and my mother lost her job recently... working in recruitment...

[RTGoodman]

Whoa. Hadn't realized that the economy is that bad in the USA (at least I assume most of you folks are from there?). Here in Finland there have been problems in just a few areas of work (a few factories have closed down. It devastates some smaller municipalities that suddenly get 30% unemployment rates or something but most of the country is fine) and other than that most companies have lowered their expectations for next year's profit.

Well, it's not as bad all over the US, but at least where I am things are REALLY bad. The Triad area of NC basically only survived this long because it had two HUGE industries - tobacco and furniture. Basically, the whole state (which is the 10th largest by population) has had the problem you say just "smaller municipalities" have had in Finland.

Well, the tobacco industry has been going down for decades and I haven't seen ANY tobacco farms in the past 5+ years, whereas in my youth (say, 15-20 years ago) they were literally EVERYWHERE. Furniture, on the other hand, has REALLY fallen in the last decade or so. Almost everyone in Thomasville (my hometown), High Point, and Lexington was employed by the furniture industry (either in manufacture, upholstery, sales, or something), but now there are like 2 factories left. (I exaggerate, but not by much).

NC's unemployment rate, for the WHOLE STATE, has DOUBLED in the past year, to probably more than 8% or higher by now. (It was 7.9% in November, and hasn't gotten any better.) That's the highest rate since 1983.

[Lentava-Heppa]

NC's unemployment rate, for the WHOLE STATE, has DOUBLED in the past year, to probably more than 8% or higher by now. (It was 7.9% in November, and hasn't gotten any better.) That's the highest rate since 1983.

That is... Interesting piece of statistics to say the least.

Finland had by the end of 2006 (well before this crisis hit) unemployment rate of 7.2%. It has actually been constantly decreasing to that for over a decade.

From the statistics that I looked up, it seems that USA wasn't much hit by the depression that Finland had in 1990-1993. The unemployment rate got to over 16 here but less than half of that in the USA. Since then the situation has been getting better in Finland (not factoring the last year).

So based on that the unemployment rate in USA is now about as bad as it has been for nearly two decades in Finland (it was around 4-5% before that depression). A country that can boast with very high quality free education and health care...

I am not saying that things are just fine in the USA - especially as there is much less safety net to those losing their jobs than here - or anything but just stating that these statistics are pretty interesting because they make it seem a lot less bad than what media and peoples' attitudes seem to imply.

Can somebody instantly point out what am I missing or do I need to research some more?

[Ashtar]

The problem is the way unemployment is calculated can differ across countries, so be very careful about statistics without any notes.

In Switzerland, we are currently officially at 2,7% unemployment... but that only counts those who are currently receiving unemployment benefits. In fact we have something like 6% of our work force which is jobless.