Another one bites the dust!

[runnach]

Mate of mine popped by for a blether this evening, I should say, we have worked off an on together over the years, he was telling me of a structural steelwork business that will cease trading some time early next year, unfortunately due to current climate.

Also on reading todays Scotland on Sunday, front page states around 2 mill (uk) umemployed by christmas, with worse to come, according to some Institute.

I thought I'd ask for a general consensus from all members for the state of play around your neck of the woods? I sometimes feel the media make things out worse than they actualy are, but I know we are in some serious chit worldwide!

Sorry for the doom and gloom post, but my curious mind wants to prove the media wrong..........I hope????

Cheers.....

 

[madkayaker]

couple of big sparky firms have gone my way

 

[snowcat]

ermm more busy than ever........... stuff not getting replaced as much means more repairs for me

 

[malcolm]

Construction and auto industries seem to be hit fairly hard. 50% of my household has no work and none of us are on the official figures.

I'm now planning a career change, but it's been a miserable time. I've been wondering if the forum can do anything to help members facing the same trouble plan a new direction.

 

[Woody.v8]

ermm more busy than ever........... stuff not getting replaced as much means more repairs for me

Same story here snowy, Absolutely flat out at the mo!, Not such a bad thing to rebuild and repair rather than the throw away society that we have become

 

[rtbcomp]

Very busy at the moment, but a lot of my work is blasting scooter frames & panels so I don't really know how it will go, less money = less for people to spend on their hobbies, but on the other hand Lambrettas and Vespas are good investments and people will have more time for hobbies.

 

[Paul.]

I'm busy too, but my stuff is a bit specialised, most of the general fab shops and machinists are quiet, and all the construction sites are mothballed at the moment,

 

[JimM]

Not welding related but I work for a vehicle leasing company, we've noticed a big hit with company's not renewing their fleets but hanging on to their old vehicles. The sales guys are spend most of their time crying at their desks.

Unfortunately we're also losing on the few vehicles that are coming back, the second hand market has plummeted so we're not making anything at auction either.

Jim

 

[irondarren]

Im managing to keep nice an busy, it might just be luck, but much of my work is coming via the website

 

[Wozzaaah]

Again, vehicle related, we have high stocks which isn't being helped by the car manufacturers havng forced shutdowns. Although we don't supply them, the ones who do are now flooding the market we aim our products at with their items normally fitted as original equipment. Mild winters make the situation worse too .
One of our town's largest employers closed earlier this year, 200 redundancies .

 

[MrFluffy]

I work in IT and to say its looking bleak is a understatement.
Everyones shelved any new projects at the behest of their board to massage figures for shareholder reviews, and lots of existing ones are being shut and the baby being thrown out with the bathwater at the behest of boards to cut costs in the economic climate, so theres a lot of people suddenly on the market chasing what roles are left.
I can name probably 40,000 jobs that have gone in the past 3 months, but they dont seem to make the same headlines, a lot of the "banking" job losses have been the IT depts. And its calculated that by 2010, 250,000 UK IT roles will have been offshored to India and other "cheaper" economic areas.
Think Ill retrain as someone who works in the motor industry

 

[madkayaker]

The situation isn't as bad up my end the companies went due to loosing big contracts through dangerous work so would have probably gone any way there is a defer ante slow down and a few lads are scrambling to take jobs instead of self employed. One now works in the dreaded mm so got a bit of discount saturday!

 

[hareng]

Wont say what we do, nowt illegal but theres antis.
Seem to have double what we normally had over previous years in both manufacture and repairs. Usually on the manufacturing side our punters get a substantial deposit plus backed by multi millionairs. Just set someone on part time.
Repairwise that could go as quick as it comes, usually from shops. If they have no dosh we dont get paid. We are keeping a close eye on a day to day basis, those that pay by return get their jobs done right away, those that often pay at end of due date are down the list. Those we have to chase, forget it we dont need their biz.
If we go thats the industry pretty much gone and irreplaceable, where else can they go, thankfully a few are beginning to acknowledge this.

Stepping up other work i built up over last 16 years as a backup just in case, tough going 17hrs Friday and turning orders away left right and centre.
Need to get three weeks work done this week in 3 days, not gonna happen.

 

[Bigjoe]

Well im not that far from Runnach, Im in the borders and desperately searching for a job which despite sending out now 50+ applications ive had 1 interview which was a waste of time offering me a position i wasnt qualified for( and had'nt applied for) and i get no encouragement from the government having spent 2 years caring for my wife unfortunately we have to rely on state income support (the main reason i want to go back to work) but as soon as i tell them i have a job all benefits stop from that day no matter if i wouldnt get paid for at least 4 weeks possibly 8 weeks so how the hell do i feed my family on nothing!

So im hoping to find a paid weekly job but there are not many around now and despite not having worked in the last 2 years ive been falsly reported to the department of work and pensions for working!

Sorry all,rant over

Joe

 

[Hitch]

We've been quiet since August, no overtime, unless your on site or its an urgent job.
A bit different to spring, 15hrs+ a week overtime was the norm for most of us. Makes a hell of a difference in the pocket.
Downsized by 3 people aswell.
One of our biggest customers has slowed up, but still building, so we are picking up plenty of loose ends for them. Nothing exciting, but its work.

We are lucky in the fact that theres not much we can't do so still get a fair few other odd jobs.
Seems to be lots of cheap repairs rather than proper repairs across all the markets aswell
Lots of reused steel floating about aswell, save on material, but labour increases, false economy on half the jobs.

A mate that does nothing but structural stuff phoned Friday. They are on the last few tons of a job, then theres nothing else in the order book.

Get a fair few beams for builders type jobs, the word there is people are improving instead of moving.

Anything arhitectural, handrailings etc, all seems to be high end stuff. I guess they dont feel the pinch as most of us do.


Companies that have folded, cant think of many off the top top of my head, but know a few one man band types in various trades that have packed their tools away.
Certainly a lot that are bobbing up and down heads just affloat

 

[English Steve]

My day job is very quiet. We're a manufacturer in the haulage industry, and it seems like everyone is making their kit last a bit longer - can't blame them really. One of our main competitors went bust in September, so we bought the company. I don't know if that was a good idea or not really, as we had to take on their workforce so have doubled the wage bill. Expecting redundancies in the new year, but don't know which site will close (we have three, all leased, and can easily run from two).
My part-time work is flat out at the moment, and should be until the end of Feb or thereabouts. Agriculture seems to be on the up, but the farmers are still repairing rather than replacing around here, which suits me fine
I also start lambing in the new year, which continues through to Easter. My winters are always busy but it slackens off in the summer.

 

[Hitch]

The two trades to be in apparently is Logburners, and Cobblers

 

[Psymon]

Self employed Photographer by trade.
http://www.invogueweddings.co.uk/

Seems people are booking cheaper wedding packages. But to be honest I did an evening ball recently and made a very tidy sum. Also been doing other photographic jobs and just my marketing has changed slightly. Apart from that its not all that quiet. Seem to be more busy than I was last December anyway.


Tomorrow off out all day, photo shoot for a customer in the morning and then in the evening photographing ex pro footballers for a memorabilia firm I am often working for http://www.sports-memorabilia.eu/

So not really seeing anything in the way of a recession in my trade.

 

[bill_gj]

I'm employed in the automotive industry and budgets have been tight to choking for about a year now.
I recently needed a few bits for an electronic circuit and had to scrounge them from other areas of the company. Don't like that. There's always some smart-ar#e that want's to make you grovel. If I could have bought the £2-worth of parts locally and quickly out of my own pocket, I'd have done that.
Funny thing is, there's no budget for material, but there's plenty of time and money for the bullsh#tters to carry on with their Powepoint presentations and so-called business plans.

I have to give some of the bosses in the USA their due, they mortgaged a lot of the Company's property assets about a year ago and the industry pundits took this as a sign of financial weakness. Turns out that they were acquiring some cash while the assets were still worth something so that the Co would have some money to keep going while compatitors were running out of it.

Jobs - they're still taking on agency and contract staff, mostly to replace key contractors that have gone elsewhere.
We hear that a major lay-off of jobbers is due imminently, but no sign of it yet. There's more than a few permanant employees that would go now, given the right retirement and/or redundancy terms.

The process of actually designing motor vehicles for the mass market is effectively dead in the UK. Its just assembly and the last throes of testing that's employing any numbers or skills. companies like Jaguar and Land Rover still employ thousands, but they're now in foreign hands and could see their luxury car and 4x4 technologies transferred to some new-build factory in India with little difficulty.

I was made redundant in 1976 from the aero industry when the last really big die-off of manufacturing took place. Apparently, the 'service industries' were where all the future British jobs would be...........

 

[bill_gj]

.........and while I'm Mr Angry, let's not forget an essential piece of basic economic mathematics which worked for the UK for many, many years:

Raw material + ingenuity + skill and effort = Products = Real wealth
...and also....
Skill and knowhow + time + material investment = Real wealth

However, new mathemetics has emerged where you need to be skilled in philospohpy and rocket science and fertilizer chemistry to understand it. For example:

Giving dodgy loans + more dodgy loans + selling on dodgy loans to greedy bast#rds + talking boll#cks = Apparently real wealth.

Which is how so few have managed to generate so much agro for so many.