Economy: Who's slow, who's slowing, Who's booked and who's out of control?

6BangBronk

6BangBronk

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2005
Location
Durham
This economy seems to be slowly picking up for some of the jobs such as Real Estate and such and is only affecting about half of us at all. I've talked to a few that can't work enough hours to get the job done and others such as myself are twiddling thumbs hoping for the best. I'll start with the first response to show what I'm looking for but I'd like to know what kind of positions out there are affected and which ones are adverse to the current Economy?
 
Civil Engineering - slow as freaking crap with no end in sight and I can bouch for all the firms in the Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill area. We're one of the only companies I know of to hold a full staff but that's only because we have other investments to keep us floating such as renting out 3 times the space we occupy and the fact that we're not too big to topple like all the rest of them.
 
I'm in the computer business, self employed. Most of my clients are 10-25 networked pc's with several having multiple servers. About three years ago, I started purposely cutting down some, firing my problem clients, and keeping the good ones that pay good, are great to work with, etc.

Only problem is, I ended up with all my eggs in one basket. All my clients are in some form of the construction industry. Brick plant, steel fabricator, architectural firm, etc. :( So, I have slowed some because that whole industry is slowed down.

But...everybody is optimistic, and I, like them, expect recovery to really start in about 18 months. (Meaning about 18 more months of slow decline).
 
I'm in industrial and pharmaceutical construction. The industry seems steady with a few large projects that keep everyone busy. But, I don't see a lot of new projects coming up as quick as I used to. Some of our satellite offices are busier than others, but overall, steady.

We have about 120 cranes and I've seen a small decline in those as setting modular houses (housing market is crap right now...) is a noticeable size of our business. With other construction slowing down, our crane rentals slow down as well.

However, with the rapid rise in steel and pipe prices (upwards of nearly 50% since January), a lot of fabrication projects were dumped into our shop to "lock-in" current material prices.

Overall, we are steady. Not quite as busy as we would like, but we are staying steady.
 
Leslie got laid off this week. She is in the auto industry, specifically she made the insulation that goes under the carpet and in doors. A friend of mine who does about the same thing for a different company, has had about 70 laid off in his plant.

Me, Fiber optics, we are booming, so they say
 
im a honda tech and weve been so busy fixing all the piece of crap hondas that have been rotting in the bushes for years that people want to fix up for gas mileage. as far as maintaining the newer hondas i have noticed a slight decrease in "gravy work" as we call it. ive been able to turn over 50 hrs a week this whole summer so i cant say i see this so called recession were in.
 
Paramedic.

Enough stupidity in the world to keep us employed for years.

Not to mention an aging population and a chronic shortage of qualified people to fill the positions we do have.

Busy and secure... I guess thats a good thing.
 
We're in Service and Repair as well as diesel performance and window tinting.

The service in repair is packed with no sign of letting up, we have some slower weeks but mostly strong weeks. Diesel performance has been pretty much dead except for the very few with cash. As you see on the board there's lots of folks selling there parts.

In the same respect, Mileage increasing products, Window tinting , and Vehicle Acc. are slamming, Folks are making older vehicles bling since they cant afford new ones!
 
6BangBronk said:
Civil Engineering - slow as freaking crap with no end in sight and I can bouch for all the firms in the Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill area. We're one of the only companies I know of to hold a full staff but that's only because we have other investments to keep us floating such as renting out 3 times the space we occupy and the fact that we're not too big to topple like all the rest of them.
Click to expand...

I think that all depends on what "form" of CE you're doing... I'm going to venture a guess... Residential Development? DOT work?

I only ask b/c Heavy Civil (Landfills, Dams, etc.) are booming and backlogged for a long time....

Dealing w/ both sides of it Design/Build.. Construction's really hurting... and work's going for very very cheap... I dont see how the small outfits sway in business in times like these.
 
I drive a concrete mixer and most of our business is slow. However, we have a 5 year project going on right now in my area to modernize a Duke Power plant, so that is keeping me busy and getting good OT.
 
Im in the fiber optic industry as well... and like Chip said, we are doing well, and the industry seems to be booming (atleast for us)... but if ppl stop having the extra amenities in their homes/lives, our industry could start to waiver...
 
I sell Verizon phones and so far so good. Seems some people are willing to get rid of their house phones before they go without a cell phone.
 
Hardware... Extremely slow for us because we are mainly commercial. As far as lowes and HD.. Have you been in there lately? It is dead compared to what it use to be. But the thieves seem to be doing good. We are missing alot of stuff.
 
Flooring
May was absolutely dead. Started picking up a little now, but nothing super steady.
Most of the contractors, localy, have slowed to a halt. So now all of my work is in existing homes, that folks are remodeling or spiffing up a little. No new const. for a while now.
 
Healthcare-Booming as always. I may not get stinking rich as respiratory therapist, but the income is just about guaranteed.
 
Toyota Parts- Just came off of a record sales month. People are crying about everything but they're still spending lots of cash. Many older cars are coming out of mothballs due to gas prices and such. People still can't drive and crash all the time. That also helps the old paycheck. New cars are selling steady, trucks are still moving better than expected. I know several local dealerships are downsizing and laying people off. Not Toyota. The big three can suggit.
 
Biomedical research (neuroscience).... innovation and technology are booming, the money is not. Field is exploding but the funding is a lot more tight than it used to be.
Budget for the NIH is proportionally tightening, while expenses to do research have gone up dramatically... resulting in much lower funding rates (lowest in decades, in many cases 7 of 100 grants funded), money tends to go to fewer labs with big projects, rathert han more small groups. So academic "hard money" jobs are scarce, if you want to be a PI at a medical center, expect to be dependent on you success for grants ("soft $$") or you're jobless.. Still lots of money in teh private industry for research, but it's mostly held by lareg companies, so not many hot-button startups these days.
 
Landscape is still doing pretty well(grass cutting and design work). People seem to be spending more on thier homes this year than traveling....(GAS)
 
Our family business is oriental (persian, turkish, and other rugs from that part of the world) rugs.
We are slow on sales but our cleaning and repair business is goin alright but all around slow from what we did a year ago. It is TERRIBLE what is happenin right now!
My moms bf works at Lowes and said they have had some great days this year. I guess thats from people workin on there on stuff instead of hiring it out to someone else.
 
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