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How is your employer cutting back?
This is one measure...
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How is your employer cutting back costs that directly affect you and your family? |
hiring freeze. no new hires in the past 6 months or going forward. my company has 30,000 employees...
also heavily ramping up offshoring. |
The company I work for has 9 employees. We are limiting our subcontractors' hours since we make much more money billing our own employees to contracts. They are upping my time on contracts significantly, since my salary was designed to come entirely out of overhead. We cut costs in August by giving up the lease on one of our then-three offices. Now we have two, and one is large but rarely used. If things get REALLY tight, we will give up the lease on either my smaller office (and move my files to the larger office) or give up the lease on the larger office.
There are only two employees in the company making under $120k a year. Everyone is paid under $100 an hour (not including the cost of benefits) but if all of their time is billable, we can bill them for anywhere from $130 an hour up to nearly $200 an hour. Making sure that everyone is working the maximum allowed on their projects is the best way to keep the company afloat. |
We're a small softare company of about 20 people in the office. Our big perk of a modest catered lunch every friday (subs, pizza etc...) is still going but if they do cut it I'll know we're in trouble.
I think that's one of the Dilbert principles: If Management starts dicking with the little perks, start polishing your resume. So far the only difference is that our CEO is in short humour these days. |
A year and a half ago my company was set to expand its workforce by 25%. Since then we've gone through two rounds of layoffs totalling over 200 employees, closed two offices and consolidated two others. My department has slashed its third party service provider contracts to the bone. We've seen cutbacks on the discount certificates we're given to spend among our portfolio companies, and this year's holiday party will be a shadow of its former extravagant self.
Surprisingly, the coffee is still flowing. |
They're not. When your clients are all energy and petrochemical companies and you have over $16 billion in work backlog, things don't slow down. Despite the economic crisis, the company's line of credit was just increased.
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Scott Adams has a whole e-mail exchange in one of his books about suspending free beverages.
Unlike your company, they were not honest about why and were kind of dicking around with employees. At a time when the money was flowing like water. We keep hiring people. Our owner has made it clear to me that the internet portion of our business is paramount, so he wants me to cut back on my nonternet efforts, ie: what I was hired to do. He has a few misconceptions about the industry. I can say this because I've spent years covering the industry for a trade paper. Whether that will cause distress, I don't know. Right now he's concentrating on web traffic of 1k to the detrement of an audience of 60k. |
It's business as usual. Actually, we are still making more money and doing just as much work as ever.
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The County government has cut merit raises to 3% (and that's if you walk on water), and has a hiring freeze in effect for our department. This sucks... with the economy gone to pot, people are receiving more benefits so our caseloads are going up, but no more workers are being brought in to help!
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My boss is possibly starting a full-time regular job. Maybe as soon as next week.
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I also work for County government. This week, 9 of my coworkers were let go, not to mention the cuts they've outlined coming up. Several people will be retiring, so that will help, but we are currently on a wage freeze: no raises, no step increases, no cost of living increases. I've heard this freeze will be in effect for the next 3 years.
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My work's been cutting back part time hours, to the detriment of us full timers. Most of our cover guys are back working their part time jobs, and management is trying their best to divvy up the work they were doing amongst full timers. Which of course makes little sense. We're not losing any employees, just moving hours from guys making from 12 to 20 and hour to guys making 44 and hour on overtime. Great strategy by the higher ups, but that is what it is.
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We're budgeting for 2.5% raises next year. Some will earn more and some less depending on their review. It is based on performance.
There have been layoffs and buyouts. Holiday parties have been scaled back to an employee only luncheon and gift combo for $50 or less. We still provide coffee/snacks and soft drinks are a quarter from the machine. |
My T&E percentage has been discussed several times with management. It's a little on the high side for the book of business that I have. But that's about it, and it's been a series of discussions going back well over a year, mainly because the insurance market has been tanking for 3 years.
Coffee, soft drinks and beer are all still free in the kitchens. |
Unfortunately even in the health care industry we are being hit. My employer just laid-off around 200 employees. Unfortunately, with the budgets being tight people are not paying on their under-insured hospital bills. To give you an idea of the impact the economy has made last year at about this time there were approximately 7.1 million dollars and this year those totals reach 32.3 million. Unfortunately when times are lean more people seek care at emergency rooms since they cannot be turned away for lack of finances, so this leaves us with more of a loss.
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None yet. But then, I'm not in the private sector any longer. Thank God for good timing.
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I'm in a growth-related industry in the sun belt - Planning, Civil Engineering, Landscape Architecture. Up until a year ago, who would have thought that would have been a bad career move?
We've had lay-offs to the point that we're a skeleton crew now - any more layoffs would mean closing the office altogether. We've gone from 30 employees to 18 in the past year, and all our private contracts have dried up. We're trying to get our foot in the door on some public projects, but it's tough to do - and for good reason. When local governments find businesses they like to work with, no amount of 'fair hiring practices' will affect which firms get awarded the contracts year after year. So far, they still supply the coffee, though. |
We recently had some cut backs similar to what others have been saying, no raises, company wide forced time off (coming out of your vacation time), reduced bonus, etc... The timing couldn't be worst because I am expecting to be promoted. Generally speaking, the first promotion warrants a significant wage increase. Since the company has already said there will be no wage increases, that means should my boss decide to go through and promote me, he won't need to give me a raise. At this point, I am hoping they don't promote me. A paper promotion leads to increase in work responsibilities but no added incentive. The old timers at work basically told me this is the company's way of telling me to bend over and grab my ankles. I will be supplying my own lube.
But they still have free coffee! |
I'm in a construction job and we are busy as ever. It is a very specialized craft and travel is required. Years ago I would be home every 3-5 weeks, now I stay out about 7-10 weeks at a time. As a result of that I am going to start looking for a new job. I am told to stay out that long and we work everyday we are out so that means that I normally work 50-80 days at a time and I can't handle that any longer.
Scoty |
glad I don't have a job or I might have to be worried about all this stuff... Even so, my wife works in medicine, and that is a rather isolated sector from the economy at large, so we haven't felt the crunch at all, yet?
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I haven't noticed much change so far. Perhaps the fact that we're cutting back on advertising, plus the frequency of shows has gone down a tad. But I'm in the art industry and we aren't set to take a hit for a few months yet. We're still floating on Russian and Chinese money, I'm told.
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My wife just voluntarily left a bank job with a large US bank to go with a healthcare insurance provider.
I work for a school district, but they haven't really started to do much more than attempt to control transportation costs. We went through a reorganization (due to retirements) 1.5 years ago and cut some secretarial support at the central office level. |
-Hiring freeze, even for essential positions
-No out-of-state travel -50% budget cut for every department -Union says that we should vote Democrat (although that's not much of a change) |
They fired me...
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We haven't had too many cutbacks yet. I'm sure 2009 raises probably won't be much. Bonuses are tied to office (and individual performance) so we'll have to wait till the fiscal year ends but as of now it isn't looking good.
They have been pushing us to get on clients quicker when they don't pay. We've also switched to a pay when paid policy with subcontractors. |
I work for a large Fortune 500 company (we're in the top 20)
We've had 4 rounds of layoffs (read: packages) in since 2002, I've been offered twice but didn't take, luckily there was enough that did mainly through early retirement. Now there arent many people left over 50... Hiring freeze All Travel has to have prior approval by Vice-President only Leasing half of the building I work in to outside tenants Outsourcing non-customer interaction processes to vendors outside the US BYOS (Bring your own supplies) actually we get supplies but its cheap shit Limited relocation - specialized jobs only again VP approval Delayed raises for two years, and the one I got was small Temporarily suspended 401-K matching There are more I'm sure but thats all I can think of at the moment |
So I have a couple jobs, and one of them is cleaning an office; that employer is not cutting back--actually, they're hiring more people, which is one of the reasons I got asked to clean the office. More people=more mess.
Another is working in a church nursery. That job is really insulated from the market, as the church has many sources of money. We're sheltered from a possible drop in income due to people putting less in the collection plate because the church prepares for times like this. The portion of my employment that isn't sheltered from the market is my childcare business. More people are staying home instead of going out, but business from my clients is relatively steady. It has dropped off from last year, but I'm still doing regular business. My boyfriend's employer is hiring more people, and offering recruitment bonuses to employees who recruit a successful hire. They're even talking about expanding hours into the evening and weekend; currently their offices and labs are only open 8-5. |
We aren't, thankfully I'm in an industry that goes strong even when the economy isn't (yay for beer).
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Dude! You people still have employers? That is SO last year.
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All my potential employers might be cutting back by not hiring me :(
I really need a job. |
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BTW it isn't bottled water, it's filtered water with a bottle on top to make it look like a bottled water cooler. If you look inside the water bottle you'll see a ball, cock, float mechinism that is similar to the one you have in your toilet tank. |
10% pay cut, effective next month. Good thing I'm leaving soon...
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6 people were layed off on Monday bringing our total number of employees to around 20.
They all get to keep their benefits (for how long I don't know) and were told that they could be asked back when business picks up again. I think the last bit is only true for some of them. On the bright side, we're still getting our catered lunches on fridays. Tomorrow is Quizno's. |
I got laid off the day I got back from a two month apprenticeship course. I was already in debt from two months of EI benefits of 60% and all the increased expenses being 400 kms from home. You should have seen the bosses face when I walked in after getting back from the course. It was like "Holy shit! We forgot about you! I've got some bad news......."
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Er, i was paid gloriously this month, told it was wrong, have to pay it all back, with a 'were not too sure when we'll get your right pay to you'.
Gee, thanks. You can mispay me on time, but can't seem to pay me normally at all. Thats admin cutbacks for you. I hope they forget about the tax bit though, hopefully i can be sneaky and reclaim that for myself with a quick trip to the tax office... |
Major salary reduction coming in Dec. Revising resume tonight.
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I've worked just as many hours as I ever have. I've heard rumbling but my boss has his hands in ever part of the electrical trade and I don't think we'll be in the tough anytime soon.
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10% reduction of salary. (We were notified after the annual United Way campaign kickoff meeting)
Loss of 401K employer contribution match. |
I work for the state and there haven't been any real cut back measures as far as I can tell.
There is the general "try not to blow all your budget out by the end of the year" sort of thing, but that's just business as usual in my experience. We don't seem to have as many catered events, but, then again, we are moving into the slow part of the year. |
My company laid off 3 people, we are down to 32 people now. I got my review this week, didn't get as big a raise as I got last year, but much better than what I expected.
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