Man this economy sucks. This thread isn't intended to be political--I'm just curious how many here have lost their job or have close friends who have. Both of my brothers lost their jobs, plus four of my friends. Advertising executive, health care purchasing, landscaper, data analyst for an oil company, documentary writer, engineer..... I can't help but think of that Springsteen line..."Foreman says these jobs are going, boy, and they ain't coming back." Although I guess they will eventually. I go to pick my kids up at daycare and there are literally 1/3 as many kids there as there were four months ago. Now I know some of that is just it being the summer, but still...the daycare has laid off two of its five employees. I talk to the owner and the guy is just so gloomy. He's never seen enrollment so down. It's getting to the point where if I see a friend I haven't talked to in a few months I dread even asking them about their work.
I work at Starbucks, so I know a lot of the local community people. I know about 5 people just from there that have been laid off, I know a couple that had to close their restaurant that was open for 20 years, because of the economy. My GF's step dad was laid off by Home Depot. My aunt has filed bankruptcy. It is a mess.
A roommate lost her graphic design job, as her design firm caters almost exclusively to banks (whoops). But, she seems to be having a good time on unemployment whilst enjoying a free summer. I ,on the other hand, just got a new job about 3 weeks ago. I suppose I am one of the few.
"elective" medical industry (plastic surgery) is slow as hell as one would imagine, people are getting cut to maybe one day a week, others let go...people running really lean. I hear its picking up but even some of the docs are shutting down or combining practices to save overhead. i'm semi-worried but not for the usual reasons....pretty unique situation over here.
i've noticed traffic is a lot lighter than usual...not just summer too, there are less people going to work.
My wife lost her job. ABM lost his job in Atlanta. The place I used to work has laid off 60%. Every area of the economy has seen layoff issues. Many will never recover.
We're kind of stuck in a vicious circle here. People don't want to spend money on big-ticket items like computers or cars, because so many of them are worried they won't have a job in the near future. But on the other hand, so much of our economy rests on consumer spending, that we won't see a full recovery until that starts to increase. Hopefully we'll start to see the job losses level off, people will feel a little more secure in their economic situations, and start spending money again.
At some point in time jobs lost has to level off. There are only so many jobs to lose. What concerns me is what about the millions who have already lost their jobs, have none to find due to a trashed economy, and have run out of benefits. Those people don't show up in the stats.
The assumption here is that economic growth will start to lead to more employment opportunities. That's always how unemployment levels decrease.
I think this country is still not even in the dark days yet. Banks continue to fail, these loan mods are not going to save people, they're just delaying the inevitable apocalypse.
