Layoffs?

[chappy]

Anyone feeling the heat of a possible layoff? Not laying people off, as I'm sure many of us have and will continue to do so. I'm talking about being laid off.:blub:

[zelatore]

Yup.

Just this week Michele and I were talking about it. Her company (tech sector) has already done two rounds of layoffs. They are down to only 3 people in her group and word is if they have another negative qtr they'll cut one more. Those aren't good odds.

As for me, I had to terminate one guy last year (unrelated issue) but didn't replace him. And I've cut some guys at my other office to part-time. Honestly though, I worry about the health of the entire company. We're a mom & pop so it's not like we have deep pockets to fall back on, plus the owners are going through some reallllllly expensive issues with one of the kids right now that I know could easily pay my salary for a year or more.

We haven't gone into full lock-down savings mode, but we have cut back on a lot of stuff like eating out (Michele used to eat out 3 meals a day, 5 days a week!), Starbucks (~$40/wk), buying books (probably $25/week), our once-monthly housekeeper, etc. There's still a LOT of fat we could cut from our budget (gym membership, yard guys, etc) but we're not there yet.

On the plus side, I was talking to a boat yard this week who said if things all fell apart here I should call him as he could use a guy like me. Hey! I like the sound of that! Only problem is he's in Portland, and the commute would be tough :boggled:

[mattyboy]

we have trimmed down and cutback, to avoid laying people off with deferring income and perks til brighter days, hang in there Chappy


reminds of of an old blues song "it's bad ya know"

[McGary911]

You want to see layoffs? My paycheck is signed by Merrill Lynch, now Bank of America. We were laying off prior to the takeover. First round was voluntary early retirement. Then came the cuts. I've had to fire several of my guys. I've also seen a lot of good friends be let go. We feel there will be even more in the future. A year ago, my director down here had about 850 people under him. It's closer to 350 today.
We're all hanging in here, doing our jobs the best we could. It's been difficult to keep morale up, that's for sure. I'm involved in a lot of the transition meetings, showing our new bosses that we have some of the most talented people around. Sad to see some managers basically throw in the towel and wait for what they feel is the inevitable. I'm not taking that approach, and neither will any of my guys.

"You can have my job when you pry it from my cold, dead hands..." :wink:

[BlownCrewCab]

Probably not getting laid off but I did learn this morning that salaried employees (which I am) raises will be Locked until march 2010. kinda sux but at least I'm getting my same 2 checks per month instead of none.

[Lenny]

All secretaries, and clerical support staff here (large company, 30,000 Coast to Coast and "abroad" ) on the Island were given notice that they are toast last week. They have been "given" the option to stay on and "train" their counterparts in Manila :bonk: to do their job. 300 managers were cut last week. We are waiting for the year end Financials that come out next Friday (13th) and what that will bring. Rumors of 2-3000 jobs are out there. We'll see.

On a side note, since BEFORE Christmas, we have not been able to even buy things so little as paper for the printers, stationary for the office etc. :eek: My Company did a kitchen/Conference room area in one of the Offices for this Company accompanied by some boardroom tables. I have yet to be paid for the tables and we are an organization with revenues of about 10B a year... :(

We are pretty much in the same boat as you folks, keeping in mind we have 30 million people and you have 300 million.
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=1159942

[mjw930]

Lot's of strangeness happening right now. From a corporate level all merit raises and short term incentive (bonus) has been frozen for '09. Company "right sizing" means going from ~18,000 employees last November to ~15,000 by this October. Not sure where I fit into all this downsizing but as of now I'm relatively safe because I'm critical to 3 projects that need to complete by Sept.

The strangest thing going on is within our IT organization. Our current CIO (been through 4 in the last 7 years) is having trouble understanding a virtual workforce. Kind of interesting considering enabling a virtual / mobile workforce is one of the core components of the products we sell. Moral within IT is as low as I"ve seen it in 10 years. All in all, it is not a fun place to be but the overall economy makes it a challenge to move on.

Internally we are forecasting continued declines through December '09 so at least there seems to be some decent understanding of the situation. Being a private company has it benefits in times like this.

[Lenny]

I see our Company is placing a Call Center in Vegas.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/feb/05/call-center-could-bring-1000-jobs-las-vegas/

[fegettes]

I got out of the Marine Corps back in 1978 and wondered which direction to go in life. I took a job with Houston Lighting and Power as an Protective Relay Tester and Instrument Technician. And after 19 years I took their volunteer severance in 1996 and started contracting Technician services in Nuclear Power. I then had the opportunity to do some Work Planning in Nuclear Power Stations and moved on to positions as an Electrical Field Engineer and contract my services out to places where most people go for vacations. The field has become short and my salary has jumped 40-50 % in the last two years, and I get offers every few weeks for new positions at new locations. And there are many new proposals to build new Nuclear Power Stations here in the states. I see the layoffs every where nation wide and feel very fortunate to be where I am. My decision to pursue an energy production career was just a stroke of luck.

If you have the opportunity to get into the Nuclear Power industry, I strongly recommend it.

Incidentally, I have been involved with petro chemical, chemical, and petroleum plants, and Nuclear Power is by far, the safesty industry I have ever seen. The NRC is one of the greatest watch dogs out there.

Steve

[BUIZILLA]

I see our Company is placing a Call Center in Vegas.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/feb/05/call-center-could-bring-1000-jobs-las-vegas/

The Redevelopment Agency will provide $300,000 a year for five years to go toward equipment and building improvements. TELUS leased the building for 51 months, and the money is incentive for the company to stay and continue leasing or buy the building.

> so what happens to the extra 9 months money on the back end? :nilly: :nilly:

[The Hedgehog]

I see a bunch of it. I do a good bit of contract work for one of the largest bank consulting firms in the country. I was working with some of them a couple of weeks ago and they RIFed 87 people right after they had just finished doing the same a few days before Christmas. That's nothing like what is going on in the big banks though.

[MOP]

My axe drops in April, sure will cramp things!

Phil

[mike o]

I layed myself off :yes: 5 weeks ago, stopped building little boats. All the retailers that usually pre season orders didnt and the ones that did... its just a piece of paper....cause their scared stiff about inventory. Im not gonna tie my companys cash to finance them. Im sking and snowmobiling with my cash. Then Ill build to order 7 days a week when it warms up. But i aint got no morgages or loans.:kingme: In 30yrs I aint seen nothing like this, it bad, big time. Ill sell em right out of the shop door if I have to.

[Lenny]

Ill sell em right out of the shop door if I have to.

Me too :D

Just ordered a 15' aluminum (3/16) runabout last week. 50-60HP 4 stroke thingy. Just to get to the cottage and back and carry wood and fridges and stoves and whatever and not care. Got a GREAT deal. Should be ready in April, just in time for all you that want to visit the Pacific Northwest.

A load of Hardy Plank and 2x6's just wouldn't look right on the deck of an 18 DONZI.

Lets hope that after 29 years in my job (the one with the Pension) I don't have to start over at 48. Thank goodness the Woodworking one pays me semi OK. I always figured this was going to happen, just not to this scale or involve soo many Countries.

I sent this to a few a couple days ago. Pretty much spells things out. Sad thing is Canada is the USA's LARGEST trading partner. You go broke, so do we...

SHIP FROM CHINA - The Emma Maersk

What a ship....no wonder 'Made in China' is displacing North American goods big time with this floating continent transporting goods across the Pacific in 4 days no less!!!

This is how Wal-Mart gets all it's stuff from China. Get a load of this ship! 15,000 containers and a 207' beam! And look at the crew-size: 13 people for a ship longer than a US aircraft carrier which has a crew of 5,000 men and officers.
Think it's big enough? Notice that 207' beam means it cannot fit through the Panama or SuezCanals . It is strictly transpacific. Check out t he cruise speed: 31 knots means the goods arrive 4 days before the typical container ship (18-20 knots) on a China-to-California run. So this behemoth is hugely competitive when carrying perishable goods.

This ship was built in five sections. The sections floated together and then welded. The command bridge is higher than a 10-story building and has 11 cargo crane rigs that can operate simultaneously.

Additional info:
Country of origin - Denmark
Length - 1,302 ft
Width - 207 ft
Net cargo - 123,200 tons
Engine - 14 in-line cylinders diesel engine (110,000 BHP)
Cruise Speed - 31 knots
Cargo capacity - 15,000 TEU (1 TEU = 20 ft3)
Crew - 13 people
First Trip - Sept. 08, 2006
Construction cost - US $145,000,000+

Silicone painting applied to the ship bottom reduces water resistance and saves 317,000 gallons of diesel per year.

Editorial Comment! A recent documentary in late March on the History Channel, noted that most all of these containers are shipped back to China, EMPTY ? yep you heard it right. We send nothing back on most of these ships. What does that tell you about the current FinancialState of this country?

On a side note, apparently China has reduced its' labour force by 20,000,000 (yes 20 million) recently, primarily in the toy manufacturing Industries.

[RickSE]

We have 4 divisions in my company. My division is making money had over fist, the other three are down. Corporate released an anouncement last week stating that they were suspending all raises for a minimum of 6-months, effective for everyone in the company. They're trying to be fair but we've been busting ass in my division and now we have to suck it up for everyone else, but we'll do it.

[BUIZILLA]

never worked harder for less... :nilly:

[BigGrizzly]

I had lunch at Honda yesterday. Japan Honda has reduced the salaries of all the Presidents, vice presidents Managing Directors and the board of trustees, in hopes of not laying off any low level people ( American auto manufacturers take note). American Honda normally keeps a 20% temp staff for just this reason, to keep permanent staff. Some don't like Honda, but after working for them for 24 years Others should take a note, the soldiers make the army too, not just the officers.

[Donzi Vol]

Chappy, I hate to hear that. Hang in there...something else will come along. If there's anything I can do in my area of the land let me know.

I never thought I would say that I'm lucky to be a salesman, but right now I'm pretty happy that my income is up to me, and that the company I work for (the IJ Company food distributors) recently was bought by the 2nd largest distributor in the country. I hate to see anyone have layoffs, so I don't say this with any glee, but we learned that one of our biggest competitors in my area laid off 11 people last week. And my other largest competitor (the big one) has apparently put on a hiring freeze. Though times for sure. Let's just hope that my customers can continue to buy from us! Everybody save your movie money to go out to eat!!! :)

[SilverBack]

The oilfield is tanking right now for the workers in exploration. Rigs are moving overseas like there is no tomorrow. Service companies are all laying off. I had at least 10 companies that I could work for this summer and now they are all running out of business. It is really bleak. I was going to do a project in Brazil because it is so slow here and then they pulled the plug on that project last week. It is starting to slow down world wide in the oil field now. My wife and I both work for my company and our income is from consulting that I do. It looks like that work is drying up faster that you could imagine. It looks like someone will be getting a great deal on a 25 ZX soon at this rate!!

[sweet 16 1966]

Our increases were suspended- until the economy picks back up. Laid off 20% of the work force while the ones left are at 32-35 hours. This one scares me. 30 + years in the business and never saw the steep decline in business. - off 50%. Prices dropped so that what we are selling (market price) is 20% below current cost in many cases.

[Ghost]

I've survived almost too many layoffs to count over the last 17 years, (one company went from about 300 down to 47 in the years after 9-11) but I did finally get really whacked last year. Been fortunate to find work since as an independent consultant, but not counting on it lasting. Have my ear to the wind big-time for the longer haul.Funny the mention of nuclear power, for quite a while now I've thought about trying to steer that way and retool my skills somewhat...

[gcarter]

Our little company has gone from 12 people in June and down significantly now.
Our service dept. is down to 2 from 4.....I had to lay off one, but back in July, I was able to irritate one enough to get him to quit. I wasn't hard...it wasn't a good match.
We were fortunate...in a way because our inhouse part time accountant left for medical reasons, he's since retired. We had a sales lady leave for medical leave for about 3 months. She's back now and there's leads for her to run, so that's good.
The other two are Elaine and myself. We hadn't been able to pay ourselves since October, and not much then. Things are improving now and we were able to get a paycheck last week!:eek::eek::):yes:
We have taken some extraordinary steps in reorganizing our little company and it's beginning to pay off.

[mjw930]

We have taken some extraordinary steps in reorganizing our little company and it's beginning to pay off.

THIS may be the ONLY positive that comes from all this. What's left when we hit bottom (and it's projected that could be Dec 2009) will be stronger and better able to perform. At least part of the problem that got us into this was rampant inefficiency fueled by the "easy money" (Not saying you were dong anything wrong George, just making a general statement).

[gcarter]

THIS may be the ONLY positive that comes from all this. What's left when we hit bottom (and it's projected that could be Dec 2009) will be stronger and better able to perform. At least part of the problem that got us into this was rampant inefficiency fueled by the "easy money" (Not saying you were dong anything wrong George, just making a general statement).
Ya gotta do what ya can to try to be profitable when your sales are down 50% from the first half of the year.