Credit crunch redundancies

Former Member

I work in recruitment and am finding people who previously had reasonable saleries going for minimum wage jobs in shops out of desperation.

Apparently the same is happening for low level office jobs. Obviously, nobody wants to be unemployed and will take what they can get and businesses want the best for their money.

It's actually pretty scary... That people who are very qualified are going for lower down jobs which are usually a foot in the door for graduates like myself.

Agencies also have very few jobs. Speaking to a few consultants, they say that so many companies are just laying off at the moment and they don't seem to have many jobs themselves.

I am going to talk to my manager soon about going permenent in my job (as I am currently earning the same as people would earn stacking shelves in a shop and am struggling), but I'm worried I won't be able to as they too will be laying off (I am saving for a TEFL anyway!).

Anybody experiencing redundancy?

Any tips, or ideas for safe jobs?

Former Member

safe job = public sector. just don't expect inflation busting salaries.

Former Member

there hasn't been any metion of redundacies for temps or otherwise at my place, but most of the workforce are temps so they'd be stuck if it happened

tho i'm taking it as a good thing as my place is currently taking on

Former Member

Senor Miguel wrote: »

safe job = public sector. just don't expect inflation busting salaries.

Public sector jobs aren't too badly paid.

Former Member

It's not that they're badly paid, however you'll find that the equivalent job in the private sector is paid a lot more. A chief constable in the police for instance might be paid £100K. What would a chief exec of a company with over 4000 employees get paid in the private sector? Significantly more I'd wager.

However, in return for the reduced pay you have far more job security, almost total I'd say.

Former Member

We're hiring at the moment where I work. But then that could change on a whim.

Former Member

Where i work, the work has been slow for the past few months (always is during summer, but even more so this year due to intense competition)

Because work has been slow they have increased the amount of work we have to do to hit "productivity".

However the union has just agreed this years pay rise (should have been sorted in April!) of 4.5% and 4% for next year.

And now we're hitting winter we're getting really busy again, and one of our main competitors who were under cutting us most of the time have just gone bust so that should hopefully lead to us finding ourself even busier and as such secure.


However one of my mates who worked in repairing plane components found himself out of work 2 months ago.

Frustratingly he has only applied for 3 jobs in that time, and despite me finding him jobs, or pushing him in to applying for jobs he just comes back with "im looking for something decent" - Personally i think when you've been out of work for 2 months and in a position where he can't afford to go out any more you apply for anything and everything, then when you've got something start being picky.

Former Member

Im pretty lucky, I work for TfL and our money is government money. I know i will be working on a project until 2011. After that who knows.

Former Member

Mr Orange wrote: »

Where i work, the work has been slow for the past few months (always is during summer, but even more so this year due to intense competition).

Yeah, my firm works in assistive technology. Like you, we get quiet summers then business coincides with the academic year in Sept/Oct. The credit crunch didn't really hit us but we were on a low in 2006 and the competition is getting more agressive.

Former Member

I've just got of temping and now work for a small but stable company. Less money but much better career/further study prospects.

Former Member

I'm public sector, but big cuts are coming, I'm safe for the next year but after that it is a definite possibility.

Former Member

My work are cutting hours...

Actually, I just wanna fuck my job and my housing contract off and leave London for good.

If they get cut anymore, I won't be able to afford to go out at all. Unfortunately as it takes so long to get home, I can't get another job :rolleyes:

Cannot wait to get the fuck out of this shit city. In fact, I wanna get out of the UK altogether, at least for a year.

Former Member

My brother was forced to take a paycut in order to keep his job as a programmer for a gaming company.

Shitloads of people have been laid off, especially in the aviation, construction and financial industry. I think I'm in the only aviation sector where there's actually staff shortage. It's the same in most countries so I personally don't worry. It's actually very tempting to jump ship with the crappy Icelandic economy.

The surprising thing is that my other brother who is a newly graduated arts student in Los Angeles just got offered a permanent job and a payhike. We were all almost certain he'd struggle in this economy but according to him the entertainment industry does pretty well now.