Hi guys. I just got some bad news from my boyfriend tonight. Apparently his job has had to let 70 people off this afternoon, and the rest of the plant is being forced to take 2 weeks unpaid and then reduce their hours. I don't know exactly by how much yet as he hasn't been officially briefed. It's got both of us scared as I've already had my hours scaled down significantly at my job (well the amount of available hours) due to just the state of the economy and the client scaling down its needs.

I thought maybe this would be a good time to huddle together, share stories of how it's effecting you personally and what you're doing to get through these tough times.

man thats bad, the job crisis is getting really out of hand now, its mostly due to the polish and other immigrints coming into england and american who are getting employed because they dont get paid as much.... annoys the heck outta me

My boyfriend hasn't been able to find a job prior to this--much less now. D: Not for lack of looking, either.

My father's been cut down to 32 hours a week over the next few months--which is a pretty big deal, given that my mother barely works. (Apparently the plant had a choice between cutting everyone's hours or letting 1/4 of them go.)

Aaand the college (very expensive; lots of scholarships and loans) that I go to has upped its costs for next year, despite not upping its salaries. All of that plus the fact that I am GOING to lose some of my scholarships (one you lose after the first two years, plus the fact that my academic one will be reduced) is just bad all-around. If I get booted from the college--which admittedly, I don't like THAT much, but I like better than living somewhere with no job and no way to do anything for myself--I also lose my student jobs. So, yeah.

I feel your pain. I'm 15 so I'm not Directly fucked. But my dad was laid off so I guess I will be the person to make the money when I turn 16. :/

Wow I tell you what I can't wait to see the end of this guys. I thought that we would be safe enough to ride out the storm as my boyfriend has a green collar job working with producing solar panels -- something I would of thought would be in high demand since Obama is wanting to get us off the power grid.

Well he found out this morning that starting Friday everyone is temporarily laid off for 2 weeks, then he comes back to being forced to take one week off a month and have his hours reduced to a really weird schedule. I can't believe they're doing this to everyone. I guess their mentality is either they can lay off a bunch of people or cut hours to try and meet their budget. It really stinks. His mom's boyfriend had the same thing happen to him, except they laid him off entirely and last I heard he was going to be offered his old job back, but I think he's still without job. My boyfriend's mother's hours have been reduced, and even she is worried that her job will fold.

Times these days are really tough. I worry. I really do.

*gives everyone a big hug*

I keep hoping things will get better . . .I also just don't watch the news and stick to reading NPR (and not even then will I look at articles about finance)

My Mayor announced his new budget proposal today and I'm waiting to see how it's going to affect me (I'm a city employee). We already had a 10% cut in my area budget and I managed to survive the first round of layoffs, now it's waiting to see if he's going to have to cut more and lay off more people or if he's going to be able to raise taxes to make up the budget gap. It's all pretty nerve wracking if I think about it- I find the best way of coping is to pretend it's not happening - I can't change anything so I can't really worry about it & if I lose my job I'll worry about it then.

:hug: I feel so terrible for you guys, its finally starting to hit Australia like this too :(

I'm absolutely grateful my job needs me too much to let me go (this site can't run with less than 3 pixelist >.>; ) but I would be completely lost if I ever lost it - its almost impossible for students to find employment right now >.< I only get 3 hours every week at my other job, sometimes not even that, and the other casual gets a shift like every month, its terrible

My boyfriend on the other hand only has one job too, and because he's a student they only give him 3 hours a week too :( Thankfully his student payment from the government finally went through so he'll at least be able to keep a roof over his head

Originally Posted by AcidDrop

man thats bad, the job crisis is getting really out of hand now, its mostly due to the polish and other immigrints coming into england and american who are getting employed because they dont get paid as much.... annoys the heck outta me

I think the real problem is that the immigrants aren't getting paid a legal amount of money assuming this is anything like some Mexicans that get paid less than minimum wage in US. Blaming the immigrants doesn't make a lot of sense. If they're desperate enough to work for less than minimum wage, that says something about their current financial situation. And they are being taken advantage of by being given jobs that don't pay enough, they aren't taking advantage of us. I apologize if I just read your post wrong and you weren't trying to say that immigrants are the problem, but that's how it sounded to me.

I'm really sorry for everyone who's being affected by the financial crisis. Weirdly enough, we already kind of had our own personal financial crisis in our family...probably 2 and 3 years ago. My mom spent 2 years looking for a job and didn't find one until fairly recently. I hope that this newer financial crisis doesn't affect us because we had to live off a credit card for 2 years already and now we're trying to slowly pay it back. Needless to say, we're still living from paycheck to paycheck.

I hate thinking about the long term affects of the financial crisis and how much worse it can get. And then sometimes I see news articles like the one on AIG today that just...make me sick to my stomach.

I COMPLETELY feel your pain! My husband is about to graduate from grad school...With a Masters in Business specializing his degree in finance. Yeah, he may as well have a degree in flipping burgers, course with that he'd be employable! He's been trying to find employment all year but all the companies out here are either not hiring, laying people off, or conducting interviews with no intention of hiring. It is soo frustrating.

My job is also being affected as the schools in the state I live in have seriously been cut budget wise, and they are trying to hire someone for my position (I am a private contractor).
Our state has also cut funding for my second job, so I just got a 10% paycut. GAH!

Maybe we can all just support each other through this nightmare?

Where I live, Ecuador, it's starting to feel the crisis PLUS the bad decisions of our president. He banned importations, so now our gas is four times more expansive than 3 years ago, school materials like pencils and papers have had their prices skyrocketed, you barely see people in shops that usually/one year ago were about to implode with crowds, you can't find certain products [no transfer paper in the whole city], and even my family has started buying less food D:

On top of that, this president seems to be leaning towards communism. If he does, we will have no choice other than escape to the US and fuck up your economy more.

Im out of a job T_T so its my husband supporting us. Thank god he has a really stable job and is needed (yay massive electric company!)

Its still hard, his paycheck covers everything, but doesnt leave very much behind for food, or new clothes that we both really need.

My parent are even thinking about selling their house ._. My mom works full time but gets paid an insulting amount for the work that she does. My father owns his own business, he does flooring. He still has work, but its slowing down and people dont want to pay once its done

Wow. It's amazing the effect it's having - especially the global effect. It's scary as it's not just one country who is suffering, but more like a chained effect. I really hope each one of your situations improves and I will send my positive vibes your way. *goes around the room and gives out hugs*

I found out that my boyfriend has been able to rewrite his holiday he had booked to cover the 2 weeks lay-off, so that has been damage controlled. However they're going to be cutting 36 hours a month off his paychecks for at least the next 3 months. He figures it's going to mean his paychecks are from 75-100 dollars less than normal. I'm hoping his math is right, as while both of our wages go down our bills seem to go up. Most of our bills are non-negotiable. What's most frustrating is his child support will probably remain unaffected. The reason why I find it so frustrating is his ex-wife hasn't worked in several years, hasn't tried to find work in several years, and is leeching off her boyfriend anyhow which doesn't come into the equation. I really have little to no sympathy for the woman. (She's a high school dropout who basically used my boyfriend to have children and leech off the system the rest of her life.)

Ok, so anyways, I'm still working and trying hard to beat the system and get as many hours as humanly possible, hoping I can lessen the blow in the meantime. My fingers are crossed that we can both keep our jobs going and keep the main bills paid off until things lighten up a bit. We've even got a friend who is willing to rent us her trailer at a reduced rate if need be and we're thinking of seriously taking up her offer. (If boyfriend's IRS situation is sorted out - he is legally entitled to claim one child due to divorce papers, but his ex wife claimed both even after the fact. Who does the IRS come after but him with a 2k bill with interest tacked on. Hopefully you now see why I hate the woman...) We are currently $700 behind on rent in our current place, and we would need to pay that off plus any moving expenses to get us set up...anything else would have to go towards deposit, if she is requiring one. At least she would know firsthand our situation as she works with my boyfriend and is having the same things happen to her too.

ill send you a prayer

I'm not going to college, and neither am I working. College is expensive, and I just can't get a job. But I don't have a car to pay for monthly, and the food stamps I'm getting should pay for most of a month's groceries. My girlfriend works at WalMart - she's a good worker, and they've been short here and there. The thing is, a good worker gets paid a little more, because they get evaluated and given a small hourly raise... it really adds up... but when they need to lay off? It's the ones they pay more that they have to let go. She just got another raise... and while that's great, it also makes it more worrisome.

Right now we're only paying rent - $625 for one month. Insurance on that rent - $19. And our internet connection - $26. Those are the things we have to pay for monthly, and they're pretty set at what price they are. Food, however? That changes all the time... and you kind of have to eat, too. xD

So, yeah... I may not work, but because I don't work, I definitely qualify for food stamps, which I'll be signing up for sometime soon.

Meanwhile, I've got one homeless friend, and many more jobless friends. My homeless friend even got kicked out of the city's shelter due to budget cuts! RAWR. Now she's living with some old highschool friend and splitting the rent five ways with nonexistent cash. At least she gets food stamps, too. It's impossible to get a job these days!! >_<

It's all because of those stupid business men. -_-''
I feel really bad that this is happening to you and other people. I feel greatful that my mom took everything out of the bank before the news told us that it cut everything in half. It's not so bad for me though. I still live in the same house and I haven't really been affected by it even though I live in the the U.S.

The company I work for is projected within the year to go bankrupt, and while I'm looking allready, finding the work isn't easy as everyones doing hiring freezes in my area.

We just laid off four people from our store alone...and in the last four months six stores have been shut down. These are ways their trying to 'save the company'. But with all the 'saving' their doing all their making for the people their keeping is more work.

I barely make over 8 bucks an hour and I'm expected to do three times the work then I was a year ago. I'm owed a raise from Febuary, but no ones talking about why no ones getting them.

Its all so jacked up. I'm blessed that my husband is working for a major phone company and gets good mony plus commison, or we'd be hosed. Glad it isn't three years ago when he was out of work, because we'd probably loose our house easily.

Back in 2008 we had to move out of the house. We no longer could afford anything with the house.
March: Mom moves out and starts the ball rolling
May: Dad and I move into our apartment and from then till Jan we go periodically get things from the house
August: I make stupid decision of staying home for semester from school.
My boyfriend helps out as much as he could through the summer before he goes away to school for the semester- But before hand gives me $100 to open an account to use towards college and paying off my community college.
September: My dad gets laid off from a job he has had for 7 years. edit: b/c business was slow. Now it's gotten even worse b/c my dad has talked to people he worked with and they've told him it's gotten worse. One guy had to sell his trucking business that used to work with the place my dad worked at it's gotten so slow
Before this we were able to afford to pay for the things we have. Now dad had to get unemployment and we're barely able to afford anything.
October: Doing pretty ok on the unemployment checks every week. Job search for either my dad and I suck horribly.
November: My dad gets a part time job at Post Office through my mom for Christmas. Making ok money b/c of a lot of work needed for Christmas
December: boyfriend and I separate. Christmas decide to give it another shot. Dad still working at post office. after Christmas work winds down. Not making much.
January: Sometimes dad works less than 5 hours. Not much money. House Foreclosed on finally. Had to get catfood from boyfriend (they have cats and he said they had extra for us. we still have all the cans- they switched canned food around then) Had to get food from friends whom live on foodstamps- when you're close to people no matter how bad either grouping have it- you still help.

Currently: I'm away at school and am having one hell of a time trying to get loans. Kinda hard when you don't have a job or anything. and the schools are annoying you for money (fuck I think I left something at home that I needed to fill out to get looked at hopefully for approval on one loan) My dad has had the electric threatened to be shut off while I've been away, the electric company has now tacked on the amount we owe from the house. he pays off cable/internet as he can. Some nights he had only worked around 4.5 hours. Oh and the Dollar Tree has become our friend. :D There is the chance since dad's job is temporary also, he might not have it in a few weeks. So both of us need to look for a job. Hopefully something works out in my favour with Barnes and Nobles so I can get a job over the summer to help pay off my school. Oh and to add onto everything else- cars- Mom's car has work that needs to be done, but we can't afford it, so she's driving my dad's car. He's driving mine which needs to be inspected and something else done to it and the power steering is going on it too. We can't afford it either. My dad's car is working ok but needs probably 1 thing done.
B/c my car needs inspected- my dad doesn't drive it during the day (he works nights) even that's risking it. So b/c of that, I have to rely on my boyfriend for rides when we're home for things when my mom is working and it's day.

Things that helped pull through: Having a close relationship with other people who will help you no matter what their situation is. Whom you will help when it's your turn (The friends who helped me, I'm helping back coming up in May-June when the girl has her baby, my b/f and I are planning on staying there since he has a license- they don't. so he is the one who'll drive, and then I'm useful when she's caught up taking care of their son, I'll be helping her with domestic things for awhile. All while helping them move- they move around the time of her due date.)


sorry for wall of text :sweat: