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Is your company laying people off?

edited February 2009 in Politics
Today, my company got rid of 3% of it's workforce and decided to close a few branches in Scotland and Ohio. However my building was not affected.

Anyone else nervous about being on the chopping block? and if so how is it affecting morale?

We seem to be pretty happy here since it didn't touch our location, but people are getting nervous.
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Comments

  • We're hiring...
  • The law firm I work for just took on a new corporate client and is in talks with two others. We are fairly solid.
    My Mom's company is looking at closing a plant as over 50 percent of their market is auto makers. It could be her plant or a plant in Germany.
  • You should be nervous.

    My company has let people go like crazy. Not counting the company that acquired us, there are only five people who have been here longer than I have. Four of them are named Mike. Over half of the office is empty desks.

    Yesterday was my review, and I thought I would get the axe. Actually, they just told me they needed more from me. They obviously really need my skills, but they want me to do a lot more work. I don't know if I should give it to them, or what. I could just change jobs, but it looks like every other job out there is looking for the same thing. I might have to do it temporarily, while I hatch my escape plan.
  • Times are tough: there's no denying that. Look at what happened to the market today...

    But, where there is adversity, there is opportunity. This is still a drop in the bucket compared to what FDR had to deal with, and I'm fairly confident that we'll pull through in one piece.
  • My company is laying off around 8000 people, but the department I work in is small and performs a function that no other department does, so we should be pretty stable. There's always the chance that they'll shut us down and give our work to other departments, but since we support the biggest accounts, that doesn't seem likely. We would have to screw up pretty badly as a group for it to happen.
  • Actually, they just told me they needed more from me.
    Aren't these the same people who didn't give you work to do for a long time?

    I'm in civil service, so my job is mostly recession proof. Our budgets, however, are not. While the lab came out with a budget increase this year, other divisions in Ag & Markets took budget cuts as high as 20%. Promotions and new hires are frozen, but so far, I haven't heard about any layoffs.

    Once they start laying off government employees, you know we're fucked.
  • The company my dad worked for laid him off a few weeks ago. I don't know how they are getting by because he was pretty much the only person in his department, and they replaced him with the dumbest person in the place. Hopefully they will call him back when they realise they are screwed.
  • I work for a supermarket that is owned by Walmart "Family", my job is pretty much safe at the moment. However when it comes to getting a proper job after my MA, that might be a totally different story.
  • I work for a small start-up, so it's kind of like "if something happens, it affects all of us."

    As long as my company survives, I hope they won't lay me off. They'd only do that if I did bad things, I think.
  • edited February 2009
    As long as my company survives, I hope they won't lay me off. They'd only do that if I did bad things, I think.
    *Pictures Emily grabbing some open toner and spinning around in a circle yelling "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" and then emptying the entire contents of the supply closet willy-nilly around the office as she skips around in bare feet while singing.
    Post edited by Kate Monster on
  • the entire contents of the supply closet willy-nilly around the office
    I keep trying to straighten our closet! I must have gone mad from people who mess up my nicely arranged office supplies...

    ....

    ....

    ...Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
  • the entire contents of the supply closet willy-nilly around the office
    I keep trying to straighten our closet! I must have gone mad from people who mess up my nicely arranged office supplies...

    ....

    ....

    ...Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
    I planted the seed. Oh, noes!
  • Similar to TheWhaleShark, I'm also in civil service. We aren't getting laid off, and if our department is making cutbacks, we would just be moved to a different sector of the VA.

    There are some developments, however. Currently, the plan is to consolidate all the billing departments for the west coast into one facility. The location has yet to be confirmed, but our VA has put in two different locations for bid. This will eventually be solved by the bureaucrats and politicians. Even though our facility has the best numbers in collections and bills made, it probably wouldn't be a factor to the people that make the final decision. We probably won't hearing anything for a few years.

    Our facility/department is on a sort of hiring freeze as well. I forgot what the director said, however it doesn't look good in regards to our budget. It's not looking good either in the billing/collections side because people are losing their jobs which results in losing their medical insurance.

    But to reiterate:
    Once they start laying off government employees, you know we're fucked.
  • I have the reverse problem - I can't get hired. I'm beating the streets on a daily basis, putting in for jobs everwhere, but still nothing.

    It's at least partially because I'm on a working holiday visa, They don't get many Australians who immigrate to this part of england, people see my visa and think I'm just another itinerant backpacker who will leave after two months for somewhere else.
  • I've interviewed for four IT jobs this week, and I have two set up for next week so far. I haven't even been to college, and I can get these interviews. From what I've heard from the interviewers, I'm a prime candidate, because of experience, but still, I wouldn't think it would be that difficult to find work if it's this easy for me.

    I don't know though. Maybe I'm just lucky. Good luck to everyone looking for work or on the verge of a possible lay-off.
  • @VHBlood: It depends on where you live and what industry you are in.
  • @VHBlood: It depends on where you live and what industry you are in.
    Yes. If you're good with IT, and you live in an urban area, you're all set.
  • We are hiring. If you are interested, drop me a line. I might be able to help.
  • My company (the same small startup as Emily's) actually just got more VC funding. Combined with my rather high truck factor*, I think I'm pretty safe.

    * If this term is unfamiliar: Truck factor is the degree to which your employer would be utterly fucked if you were killed by a truck the next morning.
  • The concept of "truck factor" is vital to anyone who is gainfully employed. Create a high truck factor for yourself, and you can get away with pretty much whatever you want.
  • I thought you wanted your truck factor to be low, everyone else's high.
  • I thought you wanted your truck factor to be low, everyone else's high.
    But then you get laid off, since the company doesn't really need you.
  • I thought truck factor was how many people know what's going in a company or whatever. So if your truck factor is 2, if you and one other guy get hit by a truck, the company's screwed.
  • edited February 2009
    I'm taking up some slack of a employee that is going to be let go with a pay raise. He made a few major mistakes and I don't see him lasting much longer. While he can do our schematics I could pick that up and get a few over time hours every week. He lacks the mechanical skills needed for the rest of the job. While its bad to see people fired in this economy he really isn't working out and doing what he said. Luckily we are isolated due to shipping overseas and dealing with distributors rather than the customer themselves. I work in a company that makes industrial automation systems for car washes, water reclamation, and desalinization. The company is rather busy right now and work only slowed down for a bit when the distributors were getting nervous about loans but I think the worst is behind us.
    Post edited by Alan on
  • I thought truck factor was how many people know what's going in a company or whatever. So if your truck factor is 2, if you and one other guy get hit by a truck, the company's screwed.
    The concept of a truck factor applies only to a team - the truck factor of a team is the minimum number of people in that team who need to be hit by a truck for the project to be utterly screwed.
    The concept doesn't really make sense for an individual person, though one could come up with a usable extension of the concept.
  • I work at a grocery store. People have just been quitting lately, even though we've receive a pay raise from the union. Most of them were lazy and/or were hated by all the managers because of their laziness. We aren't hiring, and probably won't be for awhile. And anyone who is still working (well, the number is still high since, especially over the summer, we were overstaffed as hell) is now kind of shifting around a lot more. I used to be a bagger/cashier only, but now I do a little stocking, too.
  • My job is looking very shaky. I work in a small company. We were 11 people midway through last year and now we are only 6. The office is setup of the owner and a partner (obviously there safe) 1 office girl, and 3 designers. As a designer I am worried. Everyone in my office can do what I do so my truck factor is low.

    The thing is 1 year ago I could of had a job at any design company for crazy money. How times have changed.
  • My truck factor is practically 100%, being the sole proprietor of my computer help business. The down side being I have to do all the worrying about business slowing down. Once this snow and ice clears, I'm aiming to drop leaflets like nobody's business.
  • I'm a student with student loans and no job so I probably have a negative truck factor economically speaking.
  • I'm a tech teacher at a suburban/rural high school. At this point it is estimated that our district will be cutting 14 teachers; I believe that five of those will be teachers who will retire and not be replaced. Every teacher received a letter informing them that they may be let go. They have to do this for any tenured teacher. I don't think that we will know who is leaving until the end of April. Being a new teacher in an elective subject, I am very nervous. I have a teaching certificate in both New York and New Hampshire so I'm sure I'll find another job, but I still am happy here so I rather stay here.
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