Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - I Just Lost My Job -- I Just Found a Job

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I Just Lost My Job -- I Just Found a Job

Since recent emloyment data indicated the first month to month contraction of service sector jobs in the US since 2002, and....because I am predicting a severe economic downturn in the US that risks turning into a deflationary depression, I thought it would be a good idea to monitor the impact of economic conditions on the job market, here...in near realtime.

Please post and use the poll, after you lose a job due to economic related influences, and, again when you find a new job. I'm allowing multiple entries in the poll for this purpose.

If you post about finding a new job, and you don't find it too personal to do so, please indicate if your new job pays better, has better benefits, better advancement opportunities; whether you think you are better or worse, for the experience of being removed from the workforce, and then gaining reentry.

The goal here is to use the activity on the thread to observe how quickly unemployment overtakes the economy....my hunch is, now that it's started, it will quickly ramp up, first in financial and government employment, and then, ??????...we'll see! And.....hopefully, to gain a sense of "what's hot and what's not".... a benefit for everyone who reads the thread.... what sectors are generating the most job layoffs, and where the opportunities are to find your next job.

When you post about either a job layoff or that you've landed a new job, please describe the economic sector you've been layed off from, how long you were employed, whether or not you've been layed off from that job before, and, if you find a job, post about the sector you've been hired into.....

I am not from USA, but I just got a job in the Petroleum Industry... and its booming like mad here!

As soon as USA hits the shitters we are sure to follow suit

Quote:

Originally Posted by blahblah454

I am not from USA, but I just got a job in the Petroleum Industry... and its booming like mad here!

As soon as USA hits the shitters we are sure to follow suit

Were you coming off a job loss, or did you switch business sectors when you were recently hired? I think Canada and the US move in lockstep, as far as business activity, except Canada is energy independent, is a net exporting nation, and enjoys a current federal budget surplus, the opposite of the US in all of those areas.

The busiest port complex in the US, Los Angeles/Long Beach....is experiencing about a six percent decline in incoming, loaded container shipping, so far this year....a sign of declining consurmer demand, but exports are up:

http://www.portoflosangeles.org/maritime/stats.asp

Well, I may have blown the "realtimeness" of the poll--I WAS laid off for economic reasons, but it happened at the end of the LAST tech-bubble burst, in 2004. Since then, I've started my own business in the same field, which is going just fine.

I'm a recent college grad, and I gotta say, the pickings are slim in the local job market, and my childcare work has definitely taken a hit. More and more families are staying in instead of having a night out. There is just literally nothing out there, not even fast food jobs; I've applied for one job that would be my "dream job"...cross your fingers. I consider myself lucky that it was even open. Otherwise I'm going to be holding out for August when the university/local school district start really hiring in preparation for the next school year.

Other?

I have been discharged from active military duty... I guess that's a bit like being laid off... I need to get my damned unenjoyment insurance going. Ugh! I need a damned job though!!!

I'm fortunate in that being laid off is not even a remote worry and if it happend, it would take just a couple of days, at the most, to find another.

My husband was let go about a month ago (he wasn't fired/laid off...we actually don't know what term to use) and has found a job in a completely different sector, thank the gods. He starts next week.

Quote:

Originally Posted by blahblah454

I am not from USA, but I just got a job in the Petroleum Industry... and its booming like mad here!

As soon as USA hits the shitters we are sure to follow suit

Part of our booming business is due to the special little valves we're shipping to Alberta as fast as we can make them.

Also, the high cost of fuel/energy is further driving demand for some of our products. So in spite of the fact that our company has grown very well every year since it was started in the early 1980's, each month & year now is an all time record for sales. I think the economy would have to crash into a significant depression (not just a recession) for our business to stop growing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by onesnowyowl

Exact same boat. I really hope the apps I have out right now land me something because if not I'll be amongst everyone else desperately trying to land a job in August.

Halfway done with my masters, I really don't feel like flipping hamburgers at Burger King or making Chicken at KFC (literally the only jobs I've found open currently.)

I got laid off from my last job and i havnt been working since.

right now im just enrolled in school. Im sick of washing dishes.

As of next week, I have no job.

100% Voluntary though.

If you are interested, they are hiring overseas in greater numbers.

I don't think my job is going anywhere, and I would be able to find another one most likely. But, I would take a few months off and travel through Europe before looking again.

I have an idea or two for businesses I could start if I had enough time as well.

I worked in the tech department through college as a student worker. I graduated in May and now work there as a temporary worker until someone to fill my former supervisor's position is hired. I have essentially been doing a $43,000/yr job for the past two years in the free time between classes and expect that I will be hired in my former supervisor's position next week when the main campus gives our campus permission to hire someone because my current boss has all but dropped the facade of pretending he can't tell me who they want to hire and refers to my future there in the long run.

I am fortunate in that I am more capable of doing an essential job than anyone else interested in doing it, and have proven this over the past two years. I am also fortunate that my job is an indispensable piece of a team that generates a large amount of revenue for the campus. It's much more gratifying and profitable than my previous job (which I left voluntarily) of doing routine maintenance on 40+ cars per day for $8/hr with no benefits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by blahblah454

I am not from USA, but I just got a job in the Petroleum Industry... and its booming like mad here!

As soon as USA hits the shitters we are sure to follow suit

When the demand side of the equation collapses due to artificially inflated prices, you're going to get hit hard for a bit, but your industry provides a commodity with long-term inelastic demand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xepherys

Other?

I have been discharged from active military duty... I guess that's a bit like being laid off... I need to get my damned unenjoyment insurance going. Ugh! I need a damned job though!!!

I'd say that's more like a nonrenewable contract expiring. It's not quite as simple as the "use the skills you learn in the armed forces to get you a great job" line the commercials try to feed us, is it? At least you can be proud of your last job.

Just 16 months ago, 40 percent of the TFP members who voted in this poll;
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/poll.ph...ts&pollid=1620 ,
agreed that

Quote:

No, The US Economy Seems Too Strong to Become the #1 Issue in 2008

Since then, the economy in the US and in the rest of the world, seems to have set itself up for a deflationary depression. Current and ongoing conditions are not about liquidity, they are about credit quality. Those who need to borrow are deemed too high of a risk to lend to, and those who are not risky to lend to, are not interested in borrowing. The result is a decline in demand, and prices of all goods and services, not just house prices, will soon begin to decline. Gasoline prices, too!! Good news, except for the certainty that many will lose their jobs and all of the equity in their once most valuable asset, their home.

I think denial about what has been happening and what is going to happen, is still the reason that the downward trend is only beginning. People have not even begun to pull back on spending and taken steps to protect themselves, just in case they lose their jobs.

I'm hoping that, as you see more and more of your fellow forum members post on this thread, that you will plan defensively. The problem with that, though, as recognition of the threat grows, the pullback in spending by people who have jobs will act to intensify the down trend. Since this is going to be a worldwide depression, it probably doesn't matter as much, what we individuals do in the US.

Quote:

http://www.time.com/time/business/ar...-inline-bottom
Friday, Jul. 11, 2008
Behind the Fannie and Freddie Fears
By Justin Fox

All debt issued by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac comes with a prominent disclaimer: "Not guaranteed by the United States." But the business model of both companies, not to mention the continued functioning of the U.S. mortgage market, depends on nobody quite believing that disclaimer. Wrap your head around that contradiction, and you're well on your way to understanding the Fannie-Freddie drama currently gripping U.S. markets.

Shares in Freddie Mac are down 60% in the past three days; Fannie Mae is down about 45%. That's as of midday Friday; when markets opened for the day, the drop had been much worse, and the broader markets plunged likewise, with the Dow hitting a two-year low. The initial spark for the decline, at the beginning of the week, was a report from a Lehman Brothers analystsuggesting that new accounting rules might force the companies to go begging for $75 billion in capital. But what really sent the stocks into free-fall was the news — first reported in the Wall Street Journal — that Bush Administration officials have made contingency plans for responding to a scenario in which Fannie and Freddie could no longer pay their debts. Then, William Poole, until recently the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, pointed out in an interview with Bloomberg that Freddie Mac was already technically insolvent — it owes more than its assets are worth — and that Fannie Mae was headed in that direction.

The reason that the stock prices in both companies has plummeted, is that if the government had to step in to keep Fannie and Freddie functioning, shares in the companies would probably become worthless. On Friday morning, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson issued a cryptic statement that seemed to say there wasn't any such bailout in the offing, and the stocks recovered slightly. Then word got out that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke had said the Fed would extend credit to Fannie and Freddie, and the stocks recovered more. But what happens next is anybody�s guess.

Here's why it matters: Fannie and Freddie buy the bulk of the home loans made in this country. Most are repackaged as mortgage-backed securities, which they then sell to investors with the guarantee that they'll make up any shortfall. Others they keep in their portfolio, which they finance by selling bonds to investors. If the two companies were unable to keep buying home loans, the current housing crisis would get much, much worse. But if the federal government had to backstop them, the cost could run as high as $1.1 trillion. ....

Stock price charts of Fannie and Freddie and recently prominent US mortgage lenders:

http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/c/1y/f/fre

http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/c/1y/f/fnm

Quote:

http://us.rd.yahoo.com/finance/finho...2/indymac.html
Government shuts down mortgage lender IndyMac- AP

IndyMac Bank's assets were seized by federal regulators on Friday after the mortgage lender succumbed to the pressures of tighter credit, tumbling home prices and rising foreclosures....

http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/c/1y/i/imb

http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/c/1y/d/dsl

http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/c/1y/w/wm

http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/c/1y/w/wb

I graduated from college in May, and the newspaper I was interning at my last semester hired me full-time upon graduating. The pay is shit, but I'm still happy to have a job.

How is the TFP community faring, in the job market? It seems time for an update from frustrated job seekers, those who have found a new job, and from those who have lost the job they had....

Another quarter of 2008 is nearly over.... unemployment nationally, is averaging above 6 percent for the first time in five years, and there is anecdotal evidence that people are refusing to be "debt slaves", trapped in home "ownership" with "upside down" loans...

Quote:

Implode-Explode Forums :: View topic - CHASE estimates 60% of its borrowers.....

At a recent meeting the following stat was tossed out by senior mgmt -

It is estimated that up to 60 percent of all borrowers in foreclosure in Chase's portfolio (retail and wholesale) right now actually have the capacity to repay if they wanted to.

Quote:

ABC News: In Foreclosure? Buy a Second Home
By NEAL KARLINSKY and KRISTIN RED-HORSE
LAS VEGAS, Sept. 7, 2008

Just a few weeks ago Jim Eble lived in his dream home in Las Vegas. It now sits empty because he owed the bank more money than the house was worth and the bank was threatening foreclosure.

"It's tough to come back here now," said Eble, looking at his dream house.

But Eble has found an answer to his financial problem: buying a new home. Although it's hard to imagine with one house near foreclosure, his solution is to buy a second house at a bargain price and simply walk away from the old house.

"Buy and bail" is becoming a growing trend in the hardest hit real estate markets.

Eble owes $334,000 on his first house, which is now worth only $219,000 and is still dropping in value. He has an adjustable rate mortgage that has doubled to more than $4,000 a month, more than Eble can afford to pay.

So before the bank forecloses on his first house he is taking advantage of falling real estate prices to buy a new home for $285,000, with a fixed rate mortgage he can afford. Once inside the new home, he can either sell the first property for a huge loss to the bank or walk away completely and let it slip into foreclosure.

This exit strategy only helps homeowners who can afford the down payment on the second home as well as carry both mortgages until they are in their new home.

Like Jim Eble, homeowner Kim Hinske just bought a new home -- for $280,000 -- as a way to get out of an expensive mortgage. .....

The first quote box (above) displays the opening sentence in an OP of a thread on a forum frequented by mortgage lenders and others in the banking and finance sector....further into that thread, there is this:

Bottom of page 2 post:

Quote:

Implode-Explode Forums :: View topic - CHASE estimates 60% of its borrowers.....

this is the big problem guys, no one or almost no one (60%) of the people are going to sweat, work and hang on to an investment that is 50% of the value they bought at and falling. This is what the government is seeing and it is scaring the h**l out of them. It makes the underwriting guidelines that we have swallowed hook line and sinker (for me 28 years) totally WORTHLESS...........THESE PEOPLE ARE WALKING. 38% OF THE WORLD'S INVESTMENTS ARE MORTGAGE BACKED SECURITIES AND THE COLLATERAL IS FALLING TO 50% OR MORE.....................what other explanation for the horrible losses and numbers we are seeing.

The government is amazed that all the loans were written with THE PREMISE THAT prices were appreciating AND THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO PENALTY FOR WALKING AWAY, THAT IS THE JOKE OF THIS WHOLE MESS,

that is why the only one coming to the rescue is the government, if you walk on a government loan the IRS will follow you till you die, if you walk on a loan today, hahahaha, 12 months free living, get your act together, save your money and buy the same house for 50% less,

what doesn't anyone understand about that, I am TOTALLY NOT SAYING IT IS RIGHT, JUST THIS IS WHAT IS GOING ON

THAT IS WHY THE BIG BOYS ARE ALL TAKING A 50% HAIRCUT, THAT IS WHY I THINK SUNTRUST (BUILDER LOANS) WACHOVIA AND WELLS AND WAMU AND THE REST ARE GOING TO HAVE TO THROW IN THE TOWEL AND LET THE GOVERNMENT BAIL THEM OUT...............

IT MAKES NO SENSE TO THE PEOPLE IN THE INDUSTRY FOR 30 YEARS, WE HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE AND SOOOOOOOO MANY INVESTMENTS ARE TIED TO THESE LOANS AND ALL THE PEOPLE HAVE TO DO TO GET OUT OF THE HASSLE IS WALK AWAY

YOU ADD TO THOSE EASY WALK AWAYS, THE DEATHS, DIVORCES, MEDICAL PROBLEMS AND JOB LOSSES AND WE ARE JUST IN THE 5TH INNING...............KNOW HOW NEGATIVE THIS SOUNDS, BUT COME ON LOOK AT THE REALITY AND IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS

THIS IS GOING TO SINK THE STOCK MARKET, THE INSURANCE COMPANIES, THE INVESTMENT BANKS, THE BANKS, THE MORTAGE COMPANIES AND YES EVEN JP MORGAN

THIS IS WHY THIS IS THE WORST PROBLEM WE HAVE EVER SEEN AND WHY THE BIG BOYS ARE SCARED AS poo poo ABOUT THE NUMBERS AND WHAT THEY ARE SEEING, IF YOU WILL WALK AWAY FROM HOMES, HOW ARE YOU GOING TO STAY FOR BAD SECONDS OR CREDIT CARDS

UNDERWRITING IS GOING TO BE TURNED ON ITS HEAD, THE 'A' PAPER SMART PEOPLE WILL BE THE FIRST ONES TO NOT SWEAT FOR 5-6 YEARS FOR AN INVESTMENT THAT IS 50% UNDERWATER, UNFORTUNATELY WITH THE RULES IN PLACE NOW, CAN YOU REALLY BLAME THEM?

THAT IS WHY THIS IS NOTHING LIKE THE CRISIS WE HAVE EVER SEEN IN THE PAST

....and, there is this "problem":

Quote:

Tax assessors boggled by housing dip | ajc.com
Tax assessors boggled by housing dip

By D.L. BENNETT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/12/08

........Wayne Flanagan, a RE/MAX agent who sells bank-owned properties, said in zip codes like 30310 and 30315 values have taken a nosedive faster than public officials can account for.

"There are some price ranges like $20,000-$80,000 where 90 percent of the properties on the market are foreclosures," Flanagan said. "You've got one bank competing against another. It's a spiraling situation, downward."

The agent said when tax values and true values are way apart, it can keep properties from selling and further depress values. Flanagan said he'd had a $95,000 deal on a duplex fall through recently because it was being taxed at $300,000. The buyer didn't want to be saddled with taxes at that level.

"They (government officials) are going to have to take a look at this," Flanagan said. "We are experiencing some of the same problems as Detroit, taxes are so high they drive down value."

Fulton noted the downturn in its 2008 values by marking down about 86,000 properties a total of nearly $364 million. Manning said in a typical year, Fulton tallies about 27,000 sales assessors consider as valid to set tax values. This year he counted only 20,000 due to the increase in distressed sales.

"I am less uncomfortable with values than I've been in a long time," Manning said. "These are unusual times."

Still, the issues aren't confined to Atlanta and Fulton.

Record foreclosure numbers across the region have appraisers in Cobb, Gwinnett, DeKalb and other counties wrestling with similar concerns. They also struggle with where to set the values for homes that don't sell or lots that normally are easy to value but now are tumbling because lenders won't give builders money to build new homes.

Thomas Stump, interim chief appraiser in DeKalb, said the number of "good sales" dropped from 12,400 last year to 8,500 this year. The lower number makes it even harder for the assessors to come up with values, he said.

"We have people in our office who want to sell but can't find a buyer," Stump said. "Still, there are buyers out there. It may take much longer. I don't think you can say a property has no value because it won't sell."

DeKalb reduced the values on about 4,500 parcels in 2008 and expects to drop many more in 2009 if the market slump continues.

"It's just a very strange market," he said. "It's very difficult to determine values."

Calvin Wimberly, a real estate agent who primarily sells bank-owned properties and has two listings under $10,000, said home prices in some areas have tumbled 200 or 300 percent in the past year. He said many suffered from mortgage fraud that artificially inflated values.

Wimberly said he'd recently sold a home in West End that tells the tale of what's happened in some neighborhoods. The home sold in March 2004 for $305,000 and then in August 2004 for $700,000. It tumbled to $122,900 in a sale last year. It sold recently for $51,000.

Those are the kind of numbers that have public officials scratching their heads.

"I had the toughest time trying to convince the bank the price was correct," Wimberly said. "They thought I was out of my mind."

Quote:

Paul Krugman: The power of deflation - International Herald Tribune
The power of deflation
By Paul Krugman
Published: September 8, 2008

Save the home lenders, save the world? If only it were that simple.....

.....We've come a long way from the days when Alan Greenspan declared a national housing bubble "most unlikely." There was indeed a bubble, and since it popped two years ago home prices have fallen faster than they did during the Great Depression.

Falling home prices, in turn, have led to the much-feared phenomenon of "debt deflation." Yes, deflation: prices are going up at the checkout counter, but the prices of assets, which are what matter for balance sheets, are dropping fast.

As the economist Irving Fisher observed way back in 1933, when highly indebted individuals and businesses get into financial trouble, they usually sell assets and use the proceeds to pay down their debt. What Fisher pointed out, however, was that such selloffs are self-defeating when everyone does it: if everyone tries to sell assets at the same time, the resulting plunge in market prices undermines debtors' financial positions faster than debt can be paid off. So deflation in asset prices can turn into a vicious circle. And one consequence of what he called a "stampede to liquidate" is a severe economic slump.

That's what's happening now, with debt deflation made especially ugly by the fact that key financial players are highly leveraged - their assets were mainly bought with borrowed money. As Paul McCulley of Pimco, the bond investor, put it in a recent essay titled "The Paradox of Deleveraging," lately just about every financial institution has been trying to reduce its leverage - but the plunge in asset values has nonetheless left these institutions with more debt relative to their assets than before.

And the numbers keep getting worse. In July 2007 Ben Bernanke suggested that subprime losses would be less than $100 billion. Well, last month write-downs by banks and other financial institutions passed the $500 billion mark - and the hits keep coming.

Which brings us to Fannie and Freddie. They're the only big financial institutions that haven't joined in the rush to deleverage, which is why they now account for about 70 percent of new mortgage loans. But their financial foundations have been undermined by debt deflation, even though their lending was more responsible than average. (A subprime borrower is basically someone whose credit wasn't good enough to qualify for a Fannie- or Freddie-backed mortgage.)

So Fannie and Freddie had to be rescued - otherwise debt deflation would have gotten much worse. Indeed, their financial troubles have already caused problems for would-be home buyers: mortgage rates are up sharply since earlier this year. With the federal takeover, which removes the pressure on the lenders' balance sheets, we should see mortgage rates drop again - which is definitely good news.

But is it enough? I doubt it. .....

I am predicting worldwide depression, triggering high unemployment and deflation. My "street cred" is that I correctly predicted the fall of Fannie and Freddie.... I held large "short" positions on both stocks, as well as on Fannie preferred shares, symbol FNA

Quote:

FNA: Summary for FEDERAL NTL MTG PFD - Yahoo! Finance
FEDERAL NTL MTG PFD
(NYSE: FNA)

NEW Real-time: 1.52 Down 16.04 (91.34%) 3:49pm ET

My "paper trading" gains, on this site today, were more than $650,000:

Quote:

Stock Market Game - Practice investing $1,000,000 - UpDown.com (page 6)
host
UpDown ranking: #55 of 78961
$1,688,731

Since joining that site in April, I have been correct in my trading, more often than all but 54 of the site's 78961 registered members. I wish it was real money!

dont forget your friends Host

i cant say much about unemployment in the USA. im neither american or living in america, so i dont really belong to the snapshot that you are seeking.

here though, its booming behind a huge tourism push, whilst abu dhabi is booming behind a huge oil boom.

housing is hard to come by and is quickly snatched up, both the rental and buying market. everyone talks of the coming crash though.. and the correction in the market.

what do you think?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan (Post 2481148)

If you are interested, they are hiring overseas in greater numbers.

What kind of qualifications/positions/locations?

Two months later and I'm still unemployed. I've been applying for as many jobs as I can, and I'm not being picky, either. The market is just super tight right now; I've only had one interview all summer. I've got a job once a week cleaning an office here in town, and my babysitting is picking back up. Tomorrow I go in for orientation to become a classified sub for the school district. We'll see how it all works out.

i just lost my IT job 10 days ago. really bad time as the IT market, even in dallas, is not very strong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by onesnowyowl (Post 2520813)

Two months later and I'm still unemployed. I've been applying for as many jobs as I can, and I'm not being picky, either.

roughly the same here. I haven't been able to get a job for almost 3 months now, and its really wrecking into my plans :(

The poll is incomplete. I quit my job 5 months ago in the finance consulting industry to pursue other interests. Due to my fiscal discipline, I have close to a year of expenses saved up.

I think you will find the job market to be hot in some industries and cold in others. Location would play a role too I would imagine. For those who are unemployed and having difficulty finding jobs, what industry are you in?

Host: How's the restaurant industry faring where you are located? Are you still waiting tables part time? I think you could get a good gauge from your perspective. Here in Southern California it seems to be pretty hot still. Hard to get reservations at some restaurants and long waits at others. Bars and clubs are jammed. Vegas is booming too. Crowds everywhere, lots of money turning over.

Nationally, we are a tad over 6% unemployment now. I would be interested in a breakout of what regions and what sectors.