Credit crunch

[Da Man Clay]

Not worried in any way at all.

 

[Cian]

People are going to continue to get sick, so my job is secure. Noticed a huge dropoff in the number people around, retail and entertainment industry wise - would be seriously concerned if I was still relying on DJing for income rather than doing the odd nixer.

 

[sod1]

i would like to think i am reasonably safe , i was at Gatwick for 22 years then i managed to get an internal transfer to one of my employers new sites and i managed to keep my long service in the process, apart from myself the maximum anyone on site has worked for the firm is 3 years, so if there was a round of redundancies then i hope i would be last on the list.

 

[lost in london]

One year into a two year training period, so safe for the time being, finding a decent job on qualification (will start looking in about March) could be difficult.

 

[jakarta]

Started my own company in January, giving Manufacturing SMEs specialist Health & Safety Consultancy services (i.e. not office slips & trips) - because much of this is compliance based which Clients have to do it hasn't gone too badly so far.

However my biggest Client is an Building Products provider & with construction taking a nosedive they have shut several sites & done a headcount cull on others.

As a consequence I have gone back to one of the few areas where there is loads of work & money sloshing about - Oil - I visit my first North Sea Oil Platform in 17 years on the 16th of September & have 3 other trips out there before Christmas.

Seeing as I can negotiate my workload this time around at least I don't have to live in bloody Aberdeen as I did in 1992 but I can think of better ways of making a living.

Best of luck to everyone else - I really don't think this recession is going to be a pleasurable experience ..........

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

i see the high street busy, the trains full, the roads bumper to bumper. i read that retail done ok recently (or at least not badly) and i dont read about massive redundancies. i think apart from jobs related directly to housing, ie brokers, mortgage banks, builders and agents, everyone else is bearing up well and the talk of recession is the biggest risk (and there may be a technical recession, but thats all it is). we've been as a nation splurging for too long (the government being the worse offender), time to cut a few excesses and we'll weather winter ok to turn aorund and growth in spring 2009.

A good point.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I think Glen has got rid of that Bentley and Glen is a decent bloke so I do not begrudge him any wealth he has.

I trust your judgement he is a decent bloke but parking a huge car on a double yellow does send out a bad message.

 

[Stat Brother]

I know of lots of brokers either getting a secoond or third job or leaving the industry and going bankrupt. Estate agents are starting to close across the board, Savills have closed 130 branches. Mishom Mackay a very strong agent have whitewashed their Portslade office and also closed Western Road. Now if they are struggling ALL agents are struggling. Estate agents will be culled to 50% of their present levels and mortgage brokers will fall from 35000 nationally to less than 20000 I would say.

I understand this is going to sound as naive as it gets, but here goes.
This is the 2nd property slump in 10-15 years, with a period of unrivalled growth, inbetween.

So why are agents in particular, succeptable (sp) to 1 years down turn, when it had to happen at some point.
The general rule for me is the 'garage sold for 100+k', news story.
When that started happening I trussed up our mortgage at 4%, and relaxed.

Now if a financial numpty can sort it out, surely those in the know are capable of thinking long term, if that's what they want.
If not, they are just short term profitiers, who probably don't deserve our buisness, anyway.

 

[DC Rules]

Work in a school so I think that my job is fairly safe

Husband is waiting to be made redundant from a bank based in Brighton, working for the computer side of things, but that's because its being transferred to India and the company has been working on doing that for a couple of years now, so its not really the credit crunch causing that. But we're looking forward to the redunancy pay off!

 

[SICKASAGULL]

I am glad i have retired, I wish the best to all who are being affected by the credit crunch and hope things improve very soon.

 

[Norman Potting]

Whilst I am confident that both my mine and my wife's jobs are safe (both being public sector) I do feel for those going through the uncertainty of "is my job safe". I have had 3 redundancies, fortunately the first 2 were voluntary and I was happy to go but the last was from a job I enjoyed and could see future prospects in. Also the redundnacy was a slow lingering one with workmates gradually exiting over a couple of years.

 

[dougdeep]

Having had 8 redundancies in my working life, I never say never.

 

[Il Duce]

The credit crunch is the biggest non story of my life - well maybe after the millennium bug. People complaining about small percentage rises in petrol, food etc. Bollocks. It's having minimal effect on people. Typical British complaining about something that in all reality is not hitting people. It's still easy to get a mortgage, we're not bloody starving, we're one of the richest countries on earth, we don't have hyper inflation, people still go out get pissed spend loads on f***ing alcohol and come back whining about gas bills going up by £50 blah blah blah utter gash. Try living in Zimbabwe or some other stupid country where there really are problems with jobs, food prices and basic living. Bloody pathetic.

 

[Croydonbloke]

I work for a housing developer not one of the majors like Barratts or Persimmon thankfully, but we have had our 1st wave of redundancies which I survived but will no doubt be more to come. Sales are very very slow and builds are going to slow right down.

 

[hitony]

The credit crunch is the biggest non story of my life - well maybe after the millennium bug. People complaining about small percentage rises in petrol, food etc. Bollocks. It's having minimal effect on people. Typical British complaining about something that in all reality is not hitting people. It's still easy to get a mortgage, we're not bloody starving, we're one of the richest countries on earth, we don't have hyper inflation, people still go out get pissed spend loads on f***ing alcohol and come back whining about gas bills going up by £50 blah blah blah utter gash. Try living in Zimbabwe or some other stupid country where there really are problems with jobs, food prices and basic living. Bloody pathetic.

I am happy that it is not affecting you at all, you are very lucky.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

its still easy to get a mortgage

 

[hitony]

its still easy to get a mortgage

Apparently so, according to a poster above, not to sure that is correct.

 

[tedebear]

Am I worried about losing my job, the thought has crossed my mind, but I'd be ok if I did. I'd get a few months pay to help bide the time til I found something else.

I don't see much of the credit crunch around here to be honest at the moment, I guess we're middle of the road, and when things go bad the people with the least/mortgaged to the eyeballs, get hit first.

Theres still people buying new cars, going out to the pub/restaurants, going on holidays etc - when that stops happening you'll know its bad.

As for estate agents - there were far too many in the first place. This is a very welcome and healthy cutback. Shoreham had 6 for gods sake - what town needs 6 estate agents??

 

[beorhthelm]

its still easy to get a mortgage

you've said yourself it is, if you have a bit of equity, decent credit rating and willing to pay the extra 0.25%. those that cant get mortages we were saying shouldnt be getting them 18 mths ago and are the reason we are here.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Am I worried about losing my job, the thought has crossed my mind, but I'd be ok if I did. I'd get a few months pay to help bide the time til I found something else.

I don't see much of the credit crunch around here to be honest at the moment, I guess we're middle of the road, and when things go bad the people with the least/mortgaged to the eyeballs, get hit first.

Theres still people buying new cars, going out to the pub/restaurants, going on holidays etc - when that stops happening you'll know its bad.

As for estate agents - there were far too many in the first place. This is a very welcome and healthy cutback. Shoreham had 6 for gods sake - what town needs 6 estate agents??

Whilst folk on very low income are without doubt are struggling (e.g. old age pensioners, minimum wage earners) beyond this I dont really see a major struggle beyond this. There's lot of stories about how people are not cutting back....just switching to cheaper options. But, I would like to see something done to help lower income folk especially with fuel costs but the rest will probably ride itself out.

A lot of the mortgages which have been pulled were crazy 100% or 125% deals or deals handed to dodgy creditors. These shouldnt have been allowed in the first place.....and this is very obvious now as it is these which have caused the lending problems. Thanks banks.

I totally agree with your comments about estate agents. I have had a feeling for a long time that far too many people got involved in this as it was an easy buck. A lot of estate agencies just ran themselves for a long time as property prices soared and money poured in. You didnt need much knowledge to run one all the time the market was red-hot. A bit like winning football teams manage themselves to a degree. Now they have to compete for business and work at what they do a lot of the rubbish will disappear.

So, if we found a way to help lower incomes folk with fuel bills, lowered interest rates a little and slackened lending criteria a little and got rid of a load of estate agents then the credit crunch will be a distant memory.