Post your job status (2020 Edition) 2

[umatrix]

thread1088-246571 "Post your job status" from 2009 , ( Great Recession era )

This is the 2020 edition, (I.e., coronavirus related economic downturn )

Post whether you are working, laid off, or just plain downsized. Is job loss/lay off due to Covid ?
If you're not working post how long you've been out, what industry and overall outlook in your field.

I'll start
Mechanical engineer out of work since July (laid off/ downsized). Due to Covid.
Auto Industry
See promising number of job posts but seems no responses from employers

 

[JohnRBaker]

I'm a Mechanical Engineer (Machine Designer to be specific) who worked 49+ years for basically two different companies, the first back in Michigan, the second here in SoCal. My last job was working for a company that produced and supported software used by engineers. I retired in January, 2016 and have not worked since then. My wife and I lived a modest life and we invested wisely, so we're now able to enjoy our later years without having to change our lifestyle, other than what has been forced on us by the pandemic. It also helped that we raised three sons in whom we instilled the work ethic, and this has paid off many times over as they are all, from one degree or another, on their own and we're not having to support them all that much, so we've decided to help our granddaughters instead. One we provided her a home during a particularly tough time in her life and another we're paying for her college education, at least the first couple of years.

All in all, except for the current crap that's going on, we're doing much better than most people are.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[GregLocock]

My job hasn't changed. We had a big restructure last year which unfortunately I survived (again). The way my department currently works is an A team and a B team, working alternate blocks of 2 weeks in the office. The garage and testing facilities are more or less working as normal. All that is subject to change as we/they hopefully figure out a better solution to COVID. Longer term I'd say the whole company is piling up debt, as all the expensive stuff, designing and developing new cars, must continue, while sales have dropped a bit. The automotive game is always a bit of a cliffhanger, with slim margins, long lead times, big lumps of money, and lots of externalities.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[CWB1]

Here in Detroit business and life is fairly normal despite the continued political posturing. We went through a month's forced shutdown in April and lost a few due to layoffs, retirements, and a few more jumping ship for other opportunities, but my employer did hire replacements within a few weeks and customers have been bringing us new work at a fairly normal pace. Working onsite for us is optional but a bit over half of our office comes in daily, ~25% are in 3-4x/week, and a small percentage haven't been onsite for more than a few hours in seven months. Given the harshness of the shutdown locally (even landscapers' mowing lawns was deemed dangerous by the politicos), I was VERY nervous that this would create another lengthy recession but once things reopened in May life returned to normal fairly quickly.

 

[Sparweb]

I'm pleased to say (and a little surprised) to say that my part of the aviation business (cockpit upgrades, special mods and repairs) is still holding together. There's a lot of stuff in the news about parked airplanes and furloughed flight crews, but the planes that are still flying still need support. My company would hire several new people into the engineering department if only we could find them. I'm worried that the bad news in one part of the aviation sector may be scaring off people who could transfer into my part of the aviation sector. My company is used to re-training people to settle into our corner of aviation, but struggle to find enough with qualifications to build upon. My part of the country is dominated by another, radically different, industry. Engineers coming from that industry have little in common with aviation.

http://www.sparweb.ca

 

[zeusfaber]

Well I've moaned at length on a number of occasions about my employer's policy of only providing office space for 60-70% of the team, expecting those of us who who weren't out in the field or on holiday to hot-desk and making those who missed out on that lottery work from home - but in fairness I should say that when the late-night text message came round to say that the office was essentially closed, an unintended side-effect of that policy was that the infrastructure was already there and we were familiar enough with the working practices to carry on into a new reality almost without missing a beat.

Seven months on, a visit to the office is still very much the exception for most of us, we're still as busy as ever and still getting through the work.

A.

 

[IRstuff]

Nothing really different; had to move to a different floor, because my team is mostly on that floor.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

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[Jboggs]

Interesting reading above. Thanks to all for sharing.

For my part I've been in the Machine Design field for 47 years, and still working. I'm one of the lucky ones in that I enjoy what I do, enjoy the folks I work with, and apparently my employer still values my contribution. Another reason that's good is that, unlike some others, I did not prepare myself well for retirement, so its a good thing that I can still do what I love in a friendly environment.

My list of past employers is as long as your arm, including a 10 year stint on my own. My current employer makes a proprietary metal product, in fact we are the only manufacturer of it in the US. It is used in many high tech applications, which is why is has long been a specific target of Chinese theft. Finally about three years ago they finished the construction of manufacturing facilities in China built completely with drawings they had stolen from us, and we have the proof. Our plant is running at about 25% of what it used to be.

I don't want to get political, but imagine knowing that there are machines running right now in a foreign country built from drawings you made that are being used to put your friends and co-workers out of work. So when I hear the politicians talk about China, it has a personal meaning for me.

Now all our drawings are on a server that has no connection to the outside world. So that means no working from home for us. So The Covid thing has actually had little impact on my daily routine.

 

[NorthCivil]

I work in a specialty field that doesn't have enough local engineers to satisfy local demand. So roughly half of the market was taken care of by engineering companies from the bigger country next door, who would fly engineers over to take care of site requirements.

Went through a bit of a rough patch at my old office, ended up quitting my job with nothing lined up in mid April.

Fortunately since then, have picked up a lot of sub-contracting work for various engineering companies, both local and overseas companies who operate in our market.

Through this, I've basically doubled my earnings since March.

so financially its been great (for the minute anyway, what the future will bring is unknown)

Though working from home alone has turned me into a bit of a depressed cave-man.

 

[looslib]

No changes for me, apart from working from home for April and May. I still do some work from home on the weekends and in the evenings, but limit it as much as I can. Mostly the weekend work is a backup of the PLM database and vaults, so pretty painless on the thinking part.
Being in engineering CAD/PLM administration and support, I am keeping busy with upgrades and helping the users who have issues. The company did have a VRIF program in October, but before I could even ask (jokingly), I was told my job was not eligible for the VRIF.

"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[milkshakelake]

I own a structural engineering firm and had 6 people. I had to fire 3 of them due to Covid and slow sales. I don't like the term "laid off" because it minimizes the reality, and people's lives and families are affected, and I hated doing it. So now we're a 3 person team working from home. Most site visits are done remotely.

 

[ctopher]

Started this job end of Jan, weeks before this h*ll hit us.
Similar to looslib, engineering CAD/PLM administration and support, mech design.
We had one layoff about a month ago due to Covid, I think ~15 people?
We are mostly aerospace, doing pretty well. Just watching our spending and scrap.

ctopher, CSWP
SolidWorks '17
ctophers home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[NorthCivil]

@ milkshakelake,

how can you do site visits remotely? I cant see how that is effective

 

[milkshakelake]

@NorthCivil It's not effective but it gives a good "first impression" to detect any issues. Sometimes it's good enough when a glaring issue is present. When it's not good enough, I'll send myself or an employee to take a look. I don't like doing that though because some of these clients don't use masks.

 

[Palletjack]

Electrical(Utility)
Have never been more busy. With everyone staying home in the spring it’s put a toll on the utilities. We have replaced two 15/20/25MVA XFs this year already. Was planning on replacing them anyway, just not in the same year.

 

[Ron]

I have a small engineering firm with 6 people...4 engineers and two technicians. Our work has held steady, but we do mostly forensic consulting (structural and construction related). Things keep falling apart and lawsuits result...so we stay busy.

As for site visits, we set the rules for those. If they don't want to follow our rules, we don't go. Masks are mandatory and so is social distancing.

 

[Turn_of_the_Screw]

I got hired in a new company right before the lockdowns hit. I managed to hold on until September when I was let go. I blasted out resumes to every job I was remotely qualified for and took the first job I was offered. I am learning a lot about myself during this time. A wise engineer on this forum once said that you are either a large company person or a small company person. Those that do well in large companies are adept at solving humans, while those at small companies are adept at solving problems. I thought I was the first, but learning now that I am probably the latter.

 

[Sparweb]

Keep working on both TOTS.
I'm naturally the latter, but I gotta get good at the former if I'm going to succeed.

http://www.sparweb.ca

 

[geotechguy1]

Geotech Engineer / New Zealand. No career changes yet but the usual start of recession symptoms are showing, lots of salami slicing cuts have been going on to fringe benefits and one very modest round of layoffs (maybe a couple of percent of staff). The last go round was 2016 Alberta for me and by the time I got laid off their had been more rounds of layoffs than I could count and ~80% of the staff had already been let go. Industry here has been riding a huge wave since the Canterbury earthquake sequence, Kaikoura earthquake and a decade of big government project spending so I suspect alot of people who graduated from 2008 onwards as geotechs in NZ are about to find out what consulting is normally like.

 

[thebard3]

Doing industrial controls design, chemical industry. Been in and out of here since 2006. I guess I feel secure enough here that I just turned down an offer to go elsewhere. I guess I mostly just want things to stay status quo while I wind down to retirement.

Brad Waybright

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.