Who here has lost their job due to the economic kablooey?

Some of you may have seen my post here last week, in which I described how I lost my job, due primarily to the fact that company's retailers stopped buying anything from anyone. I'm curious to know what kind of similar stories are out there.

Have you lost your job? If so, in which sector were you working? Were there many other layoffs? If you haven't lost your job, do you consider your position to be safe? I'm just interested in hearing what other kinds of stories are out there. I know this gets discussed here all the time, but I thought it might be useful to have a thread just to share experiences.

hubby and I both have good jobs that are stable in an area with less than 2% unemployment.

but we know how lucky we are.

sorry about your troubles :hug:

Where are you that has 2% unemployment. Maybe I should move there!

Thanks for your kind words. I'll be fine, though, I think.

but much of the work is difficult (mines/oil fields)

I'm a Federal employee and was lucky to get a permanent position, those are few and far between and difficult to get.

I am lucky, like I said......

...but I don't think I have the temperament for mine or oil work. Too much of a hippie.

He isn't having much luck finding another job.

not able to get another "real" job since.

...but this could change in a hurry.

I am a research scientist paid off a federal grant. The grant year ends in May or June of '09. We should get 3 more years after that but if the federal government is in a real mess and they cut NIH funding, who knows what will happen. I don't think it is likely we will lose our funding but anything is possible.

Spouse is a tenured faculty member at a state university with every growing enrollment (but ever decreasing state funding). That job is secure pretty much unless the University closes.

We are very lucky.

Brother-in-law lost his job (a lawyer) for more than one reason but partly because the law firm couldn't collect money owed to it (it also sounds like there was conflict among the partners and a bunch left to form their own law firm). He got another job quickly (possibly before his previous job actually ended) so it wasn't painful but it was a bit of a wake-up call.

went under with the housing collapse in JULY. And the area's getting worse. Unemployment office was FULL, with lines going up the block. And NO job postings anywhere.

And yet, all we seem to get on the news is about SHOPPING!!!!! :sarcasm:

No wonder WE are where WE are!

Were you looking for a skilled position? I think unskilled labor is gonna get the worst of it. For me I can always lower my rates and do something that's not really career advancing, but a lot of people don't have that option.

Now I'm just temping and I could probably get by for a couple of years just doing that. I live so dirt cheap that I could easily survive on almost any job.

That's what I worry about most, other than food and warmth, of course. I feel like more of us could get by this way if only there were universal health care.

I live in the UK, but I worked for an American company. Even now, with my tenuous immigration status, I can walk into any hospital in the land and get decent treatment. We pay through the nose for it, tax-wise, but it's one hell of a good security blanket when you need it.

Besides, how would worrying help my health?

Orders had dried up for what former employer makes, and I was one of the last hired & first to get laid off in my department.

I had a better gig within two weeks -- money wasn't quite as good as it was at the place that laid me off, but it's a better place to work & the pay's still decent for my job description. There's much less drama at this place, I don't work with RW assholes anymore, we're busier than ever due to a couple big customers who are doing well these days & buying our stuff for $1billion factory expansions, and I don't have to travel quite so much... so I lucked out, getting laid off a couple months before the financial panic set in.

Budget has been so bad the past 2 years that this January, my hours are cut to 10/week!

I also frelance as a writer/office mgr/etc but my one main client has cut drastically and is worried she will lose her home...

So now I am back at the ROP and the Job One trying to get on a govt program that will help me find a career job that will be truly stable (I have ben freelancing for the Newspaper, my first love...hope they may take me on as a career journalist and groom me, but only if the govt program helps them afford me...they're broke too!). I am 18 mos away from a BA, but can't quit working to go to school as a single mom of 3. If I didn't have help with HUD for rent, we'd be living in our car or at my parents house...

Trying not to worry, sometimes succeeding at least 15% of the time ... :scared:

It's a hostile market out there for a teen to get a job, and it's going to get worse in the next year as more teens find themselves been passed up for someone with more "experience," assuming that a business would actually be hiring.

In fact, it's a sad sight to pull into a shopping center and see Mervyn's displaying a "Store Closing" sign, Shoe Pavilion claiming "50%+ off all!" and Linen's 'N Things "Going out of business." It's going to spawn a large collection of teens and recent college grads who are going to be jobless and have to utilize the welfare system.

My (AFSCME) union position was eliminated in September due to a County budget shortfall. Fortunately, I was placed on paid leave through the end of the year, and will be collecting a (tiny) defined benefit pension with health benefits starting Jan. 1st. I managed to find another job in the same field, for 50% of the pay and 60% of the hours as my former job. My wife works for a Ford vendor and is worried sick. We can squeak by if I can get more hours or a better job next year, but if she loses her job, it's all over.

Heckuva job Georgie...

:scared:

The falloff in auto sales has been staggering.

You can imagine which side of the Big 3 Bailout debate I come down on.

Not because I see it as a bad move necessarily. I just have to wonder how it's going to work with auto sales being what they are. I guess it's kind of a bridge loan with a hope & a prayer that sales will recover.

It's gonna take much more than a Paulsen style "Bailout". The industry needs significant restructuring and re-focusing on realistic markets and goals. If that means replacing all current management and nationalizing the industry, then so be it!

and I'm sure I would have been in that group if I hadn't left on my own terms before that.

and unemployment benefits.

Have you found something since?

These were straight-up, be gone in 15 minutes layoffs. Yes, I could have gotten unemployment benefits, but the situation there was so toxic I wanted to leave when I did, and I'm glad I did.

I've been doing freelance writing and editing since then, and I am thankful every day that I made the decision I did.

but will still have my 40 hour gig. I work 56 hours per week right now.. can't pay overtime anymore..

sure when "my turn" is coming.

At my place they flat out said, "We want to do this in one fell swoop. We don't want to be trickling people out the door for months. We want the people who are staying to feel secure." I've been in situations before where it was basically company policy to lay off a couple of people every month. Nobody knew when the axe was coming, so people spent most of their time pretending to work and polishing their resumes.

our more important clients one might ask? I'll just say they've been imploding all over the place and asking congress for a shitload of money.

Lucky the wife has money coming in or we would be screwed.

My job evaporated in about 1994. It was dead by 1996. That was OK, because I was burned out on this job before I was forty years old.

I had some crummy jobs in retail and temp work. I have not had an actual job of any kind since the summer of 2001. That was a temp job that lasted 9 whole days. I got canned for stupid shit that they didn't tell me about beforehand.

BTW, I have three college degrees, an associate's, a bachelors and a Doctor of Jurisprudence (law degree). 12 years of college. That's 140 college hours on the bachelor's, 60 on the associates (a separate vocational course) and 90 hours of law school. 290 hours of college and grad school.

BIG FUCKING DEAl. Means nothing in today's economy. Lots of us fell from the middle class during the Clinton years.