Has Anyone Gotten the Axe This Year?

[Maui]

I was laid off in May due to economic conditions, and I'm still looking for my next job. I'm curious to know how many others out there are in the same predicament. What industry are you in and what month were you laid off? For those of you who have managed to hang on to your jobs, how uncertain is the future for you and what was the message management delivered when your co-workers were shown the door?

Maui

 

[MikeHalloran]

Not this year... but the year ain't over yet.

Prospects are actually not bad, here on the US Gulf coast, where anyone having skills useful in metal boat building should be able to find work.

Only downside: My house, my wife and the dog are in South Florida, where the wife has a career, but there's no work for me.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[BigInch]

I worked for two companies that went broke in 1986 (oil price 10$/BBL). Didn't seem like it at the time, but actually two of the best things that ever happened to me. Humm.. I mean that in the good sense connotation.

**********************
"Pumping systems account for nearly 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25% to 50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities." - DOE statistic
"Note: Make that 99.99% for pipeline companies" -

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[ajack1]

We have just had our biggest customer go into administration, losing all our current work and a large project we were due early December as well as owing us a sizable amount of money, we have not made anyone redundant yet but I cannot see how we cannot in the very near future. All of our competition is laying people off, I really should be doing it now but will hang on to try and save peoples jobs, not really a smart business decision.

Virtually all automotive companies in the UK are on a 3 day week and forcing extended Christmas holidays, add to that the current situation at GM and things look very bleak indeed.

 

[GregLocock]

We've just had 15% voluntary separations, the story from now on depends on Detroit and Washington.




Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[livingston]

We had a 'voluntary' reduction earlier this year and all production temps have been released. Production is down to a 4 day work week most weeks. Things are not looking good.

 

[ash9144]

I'm in the CPI on the TX gulf coast. Things are pretty bleak manufacturing wise right now. Many units are turned down to min rates and quite a few are idle (including mine). The consumer demand for products is very low so no need for high productions. Everyone is crossing their fingers that 1st quarter 09 shows improvement.

 

[ScottyUK]

Powergen and heavy electrical is booming still: one interview and one 'discussion' lined up next week, not that I'm unhappy where I am by any means. There's a desperate shortage of experienced electrical engineers in the UK's utility and heavy industrial sectors which is keeping my part of the job market very healthy, and in these increasingly diffcult times it a welcome recompense for the dismal employment prospects in the same industries back when I graduated and the pitiful salaries which were offered at that time. Maybe I'll have a chance to get a better-than-average ride through the coming problems.

Best of luck to the guys whose industries are being hit hard by the economic problems, I've been in the position you are in now when I worked in manufacturing and I know it can be tough. Hopefully things will pick up before too long.


----------------------------------

If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!

 

[davidbeach]

I am so glad to be working for a utility, and in protection at that. There's a significant shortage of protection engineers and the number a utility needs is driven more by the scope of the installed infrastructure rather than by the load served, so no matter how much or load goes down we won't have fewer circuit to protect. Besides that I'm one of two out of a group of 5 that isn't planning on retiring within the next 5 or 6 years.

This is so much better than being in consulting designing building electrical systems where the amount of work to do was always driven by what others had to spend.

 

[metengr]

I am very fortunate because I work in the Powergen sector, and for the most part I have more work than I can handle because of previous austerity programs. These programs were in place at the time when the power markets were depressed (2000-2004), and resulted in no hiring to replace workers that retired. Keep in mind that before ending up working for an Independent Power producer, I was employed with an electric utility for 20 years where staffing levels were higher than normal because engineers were given incentives to retire early to bring up the next crop of replacement engineers. This management practice stopped after 1999.


Despite the current credit problems and hold on capital spending, the company I work for has diversified into wind power, and is progressing into solar power. I have been told we are sitting on cash reserves and waiting out this current blip in the grand scheme of things. Between the wind turbine due diligence (which has been my part time job for 24 months), equipment failure investigations, welding and materials consultation for our generation fleet, I have remained extremely busy, which is a good thing in today’s crappy economy, because we have only two metallurgists in our entire company.

 

[MiketheEngineer]

We provide services to the oil and electrical production industries - about 75% of our income... Right now - things look pretty good.

 

[KENAT]

Industry: metrology equipment primarily for Semi Conductor & scientific Nanotechnology (my site, rest of company in other ‘high tech’ areas).

We’ve had a number of lay-offs this year, in fact the semi market started going down a couple of years back and doesn’t look like picking up any time soon so our first lay-offs were back in December 06, the biggest batch in October 07 where something like 10% of staff were let go. We’ve had several other small batches, our latest round was Friday & Yesterday.

Our management has basically claimed they were trying to ‘right size’ the organization so we’d break even in a bad quarter and make money in a good one. However at our latest Q3 all hands meeting the message was a bit pessimistic, in that with current developments in the market/economy a down quarter might be a lot worse than previously envisioned.

As far as I can tell the management are running us into the ground to make us attractive to another company to buy, or something like that.


KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of faq731-376 recently, or taken a look at posting policies:

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[plasgears]

Voluntary separations?

Several years ago I was laid off, and the boss wanted me to accept voluntary separation. I firmly refused by saying that this is not what happened. Unemployment payments were delayed for some time, but I won out in the end.

Will somebody please elaborate on so-called voluntary separation? I had the impression that they wanted to suppress unemployment figures.

 

[vc66]

KENAT, you can't say that! You might be silenced!

V

 

[spongebob007]

Defense industry seems to be chugging right along. We have been doing quite a bit of hiring over the past year.

I heard my former employer just had a round of layoffs.

 

[jmw]

Voluntary redundancy is either a boon or a curse dependent on management.

It is a form of encouraging natural wastage.

However, without controls, it can be a very damaging way for a company to reduce manpower levels.

What can happen is that the most useful people to the company are also often the most marketable, these are the people who could go at any time just for a better job elsewhere; by allowing them access to redundancy money just sweetens the pot for them.

The ones that usually do not want to volunteer are usually the ones who would have trouble getting any new job and holding it through the first few trial months.

Generally management should have a list of people who will not be allowed voluntary redundancy.
This list should include core personnel they identify as being essential to the long term company health (the ones that could up sticks at any time anyway) and real dead beats they want to see go without taking any extra money with them.

Anyone opting for voluntary redundancy and being refused should know they are in a strong bargaining position and might leverage some extra dosh at review time without all this "lucky to still have a job" "Times are hard" b*****it they usually hand out when not handing out decent rises.

On the other hand, "Voluntary Separation", as described by Plasgears sounds like bad management at work who want to chase people out and then claim they left of their own free will and hence are not entitled to redundancy.

In the UK many of managements little tricks are countered in the legislation. For example, any significant change in working conditions or job description ( a very valuable "must have") is considered a "constructive dismissal" i.e. they must pay redundancy.
Basically, if they tell you to go or ask for volunteers to go, they have to pay the redundancy.




JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[Mr168]

Safe so far in the Power Fossil industry, but I'm in sort of a niche position that's hard to replace. Some of our natural gas jobs have been postponed, the rest of our coal jobs are too far along to be canned. Luckily there have been some QC issues that have popped up as of late with procedures and code compliance, and the end result should be a small influx of work for a few months.

I only need to make it until June before transferred on site for a project full time for at least 2 1/2 years, and we just had record revenues this past year, so I'm fairly certain I'll be just fine.

 

[zdas04]

Bofore the US election and the recent petroleum price drops I told anyone who would listen that Oil and Gas was the place to be for the next few years. Now with OPEC tweaking the prices down, and the new administration targeting "Oil Companies" for special tax treatment (probably a new version of the failed Windfall Profits Tax) I would guess that our 3 year recovery from a 20 year depression was an illusion and is about to end. Oh well, it was a really good 3 years.

David

 

[Maui]

I've been spending the majority of my job search looking into manufacturing positions, and the results have not been encouraging. Based on the replies so far, it sounds like the power generation and oil and gas industries are relatively healthy and may be a more productive place to look.

jmw, I'm in the United States and am not familiar with the phrase "pay redundancy". Could you elaborate?

Maui

 

[TheTick]

This is the first time since 2004 that I've been at the same place for two Christmases.