I'm already seeing the effects of this bumpy economy.

I work at an IT consulting firm and am currently on site at a major pharmaceutical company. Every consultant within my company who is here - but me - is rolling out of here as of October 5. The reason I get to stay is that the business has made a case that pulling me would greatly jeopardize their project. Lucky for me, my project is on one of their "survival" lists. Now what they're doing is figuring out when they can ditch me and find someone else to do it.

My supervisor here says, don't sweat it. This is just initial panic and within a week or two, it'll pass and they'll be on to some other crisis.

Me - well - I'm just plain nervous.

Is anyone else's company going through layoffs at this moment?

I'm at The Salvation Army and we were talking layoffs a month ago because our funding has been down. Seems a tad unlikely now. Should I be happy or sad that I probably won't have to lay off any of my staff because a tragedy increased agency funding?

mj
who is feeling rather guilty at this point

Quote:Originally posted by mjfrombuffalo
I'm at The Salvation Army and we were talking layoffs a month ago because our funding has been down. Seems a tad unlikely now. Should I be happy or sad that I probably won't have to lay off any of my staff because a tragedy increased agency funding?

You should be happy you don't have to lay off any of your staff and can contribute to the effort to help people who have been hit hard by this tragedy.

-JP

I feel fortunate to work for a very large (and for that matter wealthy) state school. During times of recession and war, our stock goes up and people go to school. I've got a job for a while. Although, I have a friend that was layed off from his advertising firm. Other layoffs are on the way...I feel bad for those involved in the airplane industry.

mj,

We had layoffs last year. Now our census is up and the hospital is hiring for the NICU. Do I feel guilty that babies are sick? Nope. They'd be sick anyway. I'm glad their parents think we're the best place for them to be.


You didn't have anything to do with the disaster. Don't feel guilty for being part of the solution.

I'm also in one of those businesses that does better when the economy turns down. Throughout the last seven years when everyone else was enjoying the prosperity, we struggled to make payroll, borrowed to keep our cash flow going, and went further into debt than we should have. We had several very serious layoffs and I watched our company lose most of its intellectual capital and history.

Now we're finally pulling out of our slump and beginning to turn around. I don't want to see the economy slow, but I do know that where I work is probably the safest place to be for a while. More people will go back to school so there will be a greater demand for our textbooks. We do a lot of work for the military and their training needs are not going to be reduced over the next couple years.

I worry about my industry as a whole, as hospitality is going to undergo serious changes after last week.

Job security has never been an issue for me (I'm in the Army). My branch is always short officers and my year group is the second shortest. At this point, I can hang around and just breath to get promoted to major.

I do have several friends who are worried about layoffs. One friend working for AOL (for an insane amount of money, even though she hates it) made the cut of their recent round of layoffs. Another friend working for AT&T thinks the ax will fall in the next month or so where she works in Denver.

I do worry about layoffs, for my friends, but most people who have a college education and especially those with IT training seem to land on their feet.

--naomi

I don't have a job, so I can't be laid off, although today I was seriously considering laying myself off as a stay at home mom and getting a job. Bad timing right now, I guess. My husband's company just had layoffs in August and he squeaked by. I think he is safe for a few months at least. I think our big concern is that if he is laid off in the next year or so, the job market will be full of programmers/developers/whatever you call them looking for work.

I work for Lucent. Layoff after layoff after layoff after layoff, I'm still standing. But it definitely gets wearing.

Janice