Has your office/company laid people off? PART 5

[s_havinga]

I sure hope that with all these manufacturing/ fabrication shops closing out some more of the work gets directed my way. We are down to bare bones now but we had a great year last year so we have cash in the bank to make it about another year if the owner chooses to.

We've only had one job of any significance this year so it's definitely slow. I could see some hour cut backs coming but we are at the point that its either we all get laid off and shut down the shop or we all stay.

[speedog]

So I'm left wondering what all these laid off people are doing - I know there's been several 1000 over the past 18 months that have lost their jobs just out of the handful of welding/fabrication shops along Shepard Road and it's not like there's been a lot of job vacancies elsewhere to absorb these numbers. Are people moving away or are they just hunkering down and living off of whatever they can for now be it part time jobs or whatever?

[Sugarphreak]

...

[dandia89]

Originally posted by speedog
So I'm left wondering what all these laid off people are doing - I know there's been several 1000 over the past 18 months that have lost their jobs just out of the handful of welding/fabrication shops along Shepard Road and it's not like there's been a lot of job vacancies elsewhere to absorb these numbers. Are people moving away or are they just hunkering down and living off of whatever they can for now be it part time jobs or whatever?

most people i know who got laid off with me, either moved away or still looking for work. lot of them are stubborn and are trying to find that 'perfect' job.

[Cos]

.

[rx7_turbo2]

Originally posted by speedog
So I'm left wondering what all these laid off people are doing - I know there's been several 1000 over the past 18 months that have lost their jobs just out of the handful of welding/fabrication shops along Shepard Road and it's not like there's been a lot of job vacancies elsewhere to absorb these numbers. Are people moving away or are they just hunkering down and living off of whatever they can for now be it part time jobs or whatever?

Living off savings and EI, maybe the spouse is still working. The real blood bath will start when people's EI runs out and their savings dwindles.

I'm at a crossroads myself. Decided to go back to school to expand on my previous career. I'll be finishing up the 2 year program in a month or so, I could not have timed this any worse lol. There's nothing in town, nothing is maybe an exaggeration but what little there is has massive competition. Guys with 10+ years of experience willing to work for next to nothing. I'm willing to work for next to nothing but lack the specific experience in that quantity. Going back to what I was doing isn't an option. My wife has a good job and we've put ourselves in a position that with some reasonable adjustments to our lifestyle we could ride this out for a significant amount of time.

How long is to long to ride it out though? If I think it's gonna be this rough in a years time and have to work a couple of shitty part time jobs to fill my days, what's the point? I'm seriously considering bailing out to BC, Sask, or Ontario. I've got my wife looking for jobs in BC and I'm doing the same. If we get any interest we'll take a few weeks off and head out there, see if we can't land something. I just don't see much of a future here anymore.

[nickyh]

My company has a few interesting comp savings initiatives:

1) You can opt out of up to 75% of your income, and receive share units in exchange, the more you opt out of - the more matching bonus you get from the company.

Great if you don't need a day to day paycheque but I only see a handful of folks doing this, presumably only at the exec level.

2) you can apply for unpaid time off, but you need supervisor approval. So if you want to take 3 extra weeks summer vacation, you can do it but obviously unpaid, and can't impact your department in a negative way.

[holden]

The last 3 months of 2015 saw the first quarter of negative interprovincial migration for Alberta since late 2009. My guess is that will continue for Q1 of 2016.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by speedog
Tough for all the in the O&G industries, glad I'm not but my new line of work from about a year ago sees its ups and downs, was extremely slow in January and February but now I'm juggling contract work with 3 different companies and have worked for 23 of the last 24 days with no end currently in sight. It was challenging at first because I as was new in the industry (kitchen cabinet installation/service) but now it's not difficult after learning tricks of the trade, time now to improve efficiency.

My kitchen is being reno'ed right now. The crew seems very busy with weeks of work lined up.

Wonder if real estate prices tanked and people decided to reno instead of new homes.

Or new home that needed reno a la Buster's new dig.

[roopi]

Originally posted by nickyh

1) You can opt out of up to 75% of your income, and receive share units in exchange, the more you opt out of - the more matching bonus you get from the company.

Public company?

[bjstare]

Originally posted by nickyh
My company has a few interesting comp savings initiatives:

1) You can opt out of up to 75% of your income, and receive share units in exchange, the more you opt out of - the more matching bonus you get from the company.

Can basically live off my wife's salary right now, so I'd be exploiting the shit out of that.

[sabad66]

Originally posted by rx7_turbo2


Living off savings and EI, maybe the spouse is still working. The real blood bath will start when people's EI runs out and their savings dwindles.

I'm at a crossroads myself. Decided to go back to school to expand on my previous career. I'll be finishing up the 2 year program in a month or so, I could not have timed this any worse lol. There's nothing in town, nothing is maybe an exaggeration but what little there is has massive competition. Guys with 10+ years of experience willing to work for next to nothing. I'm willing to work for next to nothing but lack the specific experience in that quantity. Going back to what I was doing isn't an option. My wife has a good job and we've put ourselves in a position that with some reasonable adjustments to our lifestyle we could ride this out for a significant amount of time.

How long is to long to ride it out though? If I think it's gonna be this rough in a years time and have to work a couple of shitty part time jobs to fill my days, what's the point? I'm seriously considering bailing out to BC, Sask, or Ontario. I've got my wife looking for jobs in BC and I'm doing the same. If we get any interest we'll take a few weeks off and head out there, see if we can't land something. I just don't see much of a future here anymore.

which 2 year program?

[spikerS]

Originally posted by holden
The last 3 months of 2015 saw the first quarter of negative interprovincial migration for Alberta since late 2009. My guess is that will continue for Q1 of 2016.

Can you provide your source? I would be interested in knowing the actual numbers.

[rx7_turbo2]

Originally posted by sabad66

which 2 year program?

EET

[CompletelyNumb]

Originally posted by speedog
So I'm left wondering what all these laid off people are doing - I know there's been several 1000 over the past 18 months that have lost their jobs just out of the handful of welding/fabrication shops along Shepard Road and it's not like there's been a lot of job vacancies elsewhere to absorb these numbers. Are people moving away or are they just hunkering down and living off of whatever they can for now be it part time jobs or whatever?

I know hundreds of people laid off or out of work. For the majority, they are staying at home collecting EI. Selling what they can, cutting costs and downsizing as needed. For the ones that didn't qualify for EI (every consultant out there), and don't have a huge savings, they seem to be downsizing to that of a college student. I'm in that boat, sold everything I owned.

The ones that had a massive nest egg are fishing and having fun.

The ones looking for work can't find any. I know people that actually have applied to McDonalds, WalMart, Home Depot, etc. I don't know many people looking for "the perfect job", most I know are scared of being homeless, and are looking for anything. But with 100k out of work people to compete with, plus the non-oil people just generally looking for work, it's an uphill battle.

Some have lost everything are are living in a parents basement.

[holden]

Originally posted by spikerS


Can you provide your source? I would be interested in knowing the actual numbers.

http://www.macleans.ca/economy/econo...bound-no-more/

[RealJimmyJames]

Originally posted by CompletelyNumb

I know hundreds of people laid off or out of work. For the majority, they are staying at home collecting EI. Selling what they can, cutting costs and downsizing as needed. For the ones that didn't qualify for EI (every consultant out there), and don't have a huge savings, they seem to be downsizing to that of a college student. I'm in that boat, sold everything I owned.

The ones that had a massive nest egg are fishing and having fun.

The ones looking for work can't find any. I know people that actually have applied to McDonalds, WalMart, Home Depot, etc. I don't know many people looking for "the perfect job", most I know are scared of being homeless, and are looking for anything. But with 100k out of work people to compete with, plus the non-oil people just generally looking for work, it's an uphill battle.

Some have lost everything are are living in a parents basement.

The ones who were consulting and living paycheque to paycheque without at least a little nest egg were honestly living pretty stupidly.

Not saying every consultant can have 12 months of income stashed away, but when you choose the consulting lifestyle, you accept the higher risk of $0 income, and you need to structure your lifestyle accordingly. Low debt, low ongoing expenses at the very minimum.

Anyway, folks have to make the tough choices in order to survive. Sell your cars, cut your cable, ride the bus and try not to loose your house.
Remember the days when every industrial park had lawn signs advertising warehouse and labourer jobs? Those days are so very over.

[CompletelyNumb]

Originally posted by RealJimmyJames
The ones who were consulting and living paycheque to paycheque without at least a little nest egg were honestly living pretty stupidly.

Not saying every consultant can have 12 months of income stashed away, but when you choose the consulting lifestyle, you accept the higher risk of $0 income, and you need to structure your lifestyle accordingly. Low debt, low ongoing expenses at the very minimum.

Anyway, folks have to make the tough choices in order to survive. Sell your cars, cut your cable, ride the bus and try not to loose your house.
Remember the days when every industrial park had lawn signs advertising warehouse and labourer jobs? Those days are so very over.

I completely agree. In my case, I spent a great deal of money at the end of 2014 on my wedding, expecting to make it back jan-mar of 2015 (I had the work allotted to me). Project was shut down end of Jan. So I was only able to survive about 6 months before trimming all the fat. Bad timing, bad planning, bit of both perhaps.

I remember years ago being able to get a class 3 driving job over break up for nearly $30/hour. These days I see the exact same jobs posted for half that. I can't even imagine how overwhelmed companies are with applications.

[nickyh]

Originally posted by roopi


Public company?

Yup, but our stock has quite a bit of volatility to it so that's where the gamble is.

[BavarianBeast]

SNC lavalamp?