The economy, now

drkelly

drkelly

Dipstick who put two vehicles on jack stands
Joined
Mar 21, 2005
Location
Oak Ridge/Stokesdale, NC
We had a thread or two on the economy several months back and everyone was commenting on how much their business, work load etc was down. I am just curious how everyone feels about the economy now. I know a lot of you guys are self employed or work for small businesses, so you see and feel it first hand. We had some layoffs at my work several months ago, but none since. Nobody got raises at the beginning of 2009 at merit increase time. A couple of weeks ago the company I work for started paying the contract houses 10% less for the contract engineers/designers they employee here. I have heard from some of the contractors that the 10% pay cut was passed down to them. Class 8 truck sales are still very low, but were up 8% in the month of September, but 8% more than low volume is still low volume. They have been cutting costs in every way imaginable here. They won't even replace the broken microwave in the breakroom so we can heat up our lunch. An employee brought one in that he bought at a yard sale for 5$. They canceled the free coffee service, and are doing lots of little things like that.
 
I work for a small car and home audio shop in mt. airy. Sales suck right now. This is usually the slow time of the year for us, but it is much much slower than usuall. For the first time in 8 years my hours have been cut. I was working 51 hours per week, and now im down to 38 hrs counting working on saturday. Its really a big roller coaster, one day we will be slammed with business and the next day im searching for things to do. I really hope it gets better.
 
I'm not a big fan right now. I bid construction work and every mom/pop outfit on the planet is slitting their wrists trying to get large jobs they have no business bidding in the first place. So in my world things are slow. We have also had cutbacks in every way imaginable minus workforce. On that note I think thats awesome. In some aspects I think it has shown business owners/managers how to cut the fat period. So in a way the people that made poor decisions right now are going to be paying out the :poop: pipe here over the next year and the relash is going to be terrible but some companies gonna really lean/mean this year! People are working harder out of fear/greed and imho we might come out a better harder working US out of this.
 
I cant keep up with my contacts, they keep getting laid off. Alot of times, when i step into an office where ive had an established customer theres a new face, or rather...several new faces where they delegated one mas job to 3 or 4.
 
raleighjeepguy said:
I'm not a big fan right now. I bid construction work and every mom/pop outfit on the planet is slitting their wrists trying to get large jobs they have no business bidding in the first place.
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Tell me about it. We have lost some jobs to rag-tag bunches that have probably never even thought about jobs of these magnitudes. I just hope it come back to bite GCs in the ass and they will start going back to quality instead of settling for the absolute lowest bidder. My company has relied on its reputation for high quality to get us jobs, but lately, all that matters is the $$, and we can't compete with some of the small time firms that bid against us.
 
Things are the same for me as they always have been,it's either feast or famine.My biggest problem is that people are lettting stuff go cheap and I stay broke as a result of it.My wife works for John Deere and they are talking about putting them on 6 day weeks/9 hour days.I don't know who they think is gonna buy all those mowers.JD told them they would not be gettin their year-end bonus this year,the comp was givin it to the food bank($45000).Naturally that just applied to the hourly folks.
 
Tell me about it. We have lost some jobs to rag-tag bunches that have probably never even thought about jobs of these magnitudes. I just hope it come back to bite GCs in the ass and they will start going back to quality instead of settling for the absolute lowest bidder. My company has relied on its reputation for high quality to get us jobs, but lately, all that matters is the $$, and we can't compete with some of the small time firms that bid against us.
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mind if I ask what trade? Well the GC's are in the same boat. If they don't use the lowest $ they aren't getting work. I bid a job 2 weeks ago with 32 GC's on it! Funny thing was 2 days later they found out their div 16 # couldn't get bonded for work that size.
 
One of my clients (materials supplier in the big construction industry) is doing a lot of quotes...enough to keep the estimating department going full-tilt. But as raleighjeepguy says, other places are undercutting, quoting at times below cost just to keep some cash flow and the lights on.
 
I work for AT&T advertising doing graphic design. They have cut our free coffee and in two months I'll be losing my job as a graphic designer. They are making major cutbacks here. More than half of the employees here are being surplused.
 
well my work didn't slow down,it came to a screeching halt.i work in the oil feilds and went from 84 hours a week for the past year to nota,nothing, zilch,zero.then to top it off when i got my last check there was a notice saying when we do return to work all operators will be taking a $5.00 per hour pay cut. the reason was as someone stated before,to be able compete at the bid table,the place where our reputation use to carry a lot of weight but today the only thing that matters is the lowest number.
 
I am in the staffing business... Accounting and Finance... I have never been as busy as I have been in the last 2 months. It is amazing how many people are getting jobs right now. I talked to 40 people yesterday... checking up to see how the job search was going and 27 had found a new position already.
 
I'm a database administrator and a life reinsurance firm. We didn't get merit raises at the beginning of the year either. They did pay out bonuses but they were cut substantially from previous years. We have had some reorganization that has caused about 5 - 10 layoffs, but otherwise there have been no other layoffs. There have been others who have resigned from the company and their positions have not been re-filled. As far as our sales go for 2009 we are meeting our projections. There is still talk that raises and bonuses may not be paid out in early 2010 either. We have a larger parent company to answer to so if they are doing poorly it also reflects on our wages and staffing.
 
Mercedes, Bmw's and Porsche are still breaking...we're off a bit from years past. People aren't servicing or fixing these things until it absolutely has to be done. It seems that at least 1-3 customers a week are coming in saying they lost their job, that's really scarry.
 
Also forgot to mention that our benefits for 2010 have been reduced and our premiums increased. We now have an 80/20 plan with no copays that is costing us $50 more per month. :(
 
I own a quick serve restaurant and our business is really down in the last 6 weeks. We had been actually up quite a bit till then and it seems like in the last month we've hit a wall. Our customer count is down but our money is down even worse, telling me even the people that are still coming in aren't spending as much.
 
i hate to even type this, b/c i feel like i am messing with fate or something.

we went from 4 days a week for june and july to 7 days in august, september, and cotober. the outlook for november is even better, and we already have several orders into december. get this, we are so busy that we are selling products to china. you read that right. selling products to china. even the chineese are tired of chineese quality.

in june and july, we all (everyone, even the owners) took 10% less, and gave up 401k matching. we have gotten 5% back, and cash is back to level. we are stashing it now, and preparing for the next lull, because it think it is going to happen.
 
My dad's small-time renovation/residential contracting business has taken a serious dive in the last couple of months.

I think the worst is yet to come. With the government "stimulus" phoney-funds propping numbers up around the country it is only a matter of time before people realize the well was dry before the faucet was turned on. Then, with most people's unemployment benefits running out you will have a larger population sitting around doing nothing.

I keep socking it away as long as I can...
 
Well I hope people don't hate me but my work is doing great. I work as a pipe welder in the petroleum industry currently. I work on and around the big tanks off I40 Greensboro and all over. We have been on 60+hrs for the past 4 weeks. I thank the good Lord, and hope and pray for the less fortunate. However I hope it is a good sign because 2 months ago we were down to 40-hrs a week. Lets keep our heads high and hopes up and help each other anyway we can.
 
before I got laid off in march, the company I worked for got us crappier insurance, cut our pay by anywhere from 10 to 25 percent and stopped matching 401k all together.

my dad works at Deer/hitachijapaneesey and they've been working him about 9 days a month for the past year. and they tell him its not looking good for 2010 either.
 
OnlyOneDR said:
Then, with most people's unemployment benefits running out you will have a larger population sitting around doing nothing.
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Just the honest one's! The lazy will ramp up their thieving efforts in an attempt to take what's yours...

rock-lucky said:
Well I hope people don't hate me but my work is doing great.
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Same here... mine hasn't changed in over 9 years. Initially private company (now public) with funding until mid-2011. However, that date has just been pushed out "several" years with another round of funding... so it'll be back to 50-60 hours/week (from 45) until the next vacation time
 
Not really sure if I should post this or not but I thought It was semi-related to this topic. Know alot of people are having problems with Credit rate jacking etc. Found an excellent source forum for all things credit. Helped me out tremendously after my seperation and thought I'd share since everyone seems to be hitting a wall economically lately

www.creditboards.com

and no this isn't spam or just a bs site. Really has some great info on it
 
I'm a Medicaid caseworker for DSS so the economy has really affected my job. I've been working 9hrs./day + Saturdays to try to catch up due to the increase in public assistance applications. The county has increased insurance premiums, eliminated increases, & froze several of the vacant positions to help w/the budget.
 
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