How many of you are working at the same job that you were before the September 2008 crash? How many of you lost your job or lost hours and income in your job? And how many of you had trouble, or are having trouble, finding new work?
Oh, and if any of you want to hire me, I work for slave wages.
I would love to hire you because you are one of the smartest people I know.
I haven’t worked in several years. It’s a strange story but my dad needs me around to keep him company and take care of things because he can’t and he supports me. So I guess I’m one of those rare “Kept Men.”
I don’t see (working) people gaining anything in the income area at all though. In fact, they seem to be losing BIG TIME.
I was in the Bay Area tech world working as a Systems Engineer all throughout the .com boom and saw my salary raise dramatically every year and the bonuses were absolutely massive. But no more. Now so may of those jobs are being outsourced to India. And the innovation has come grinding to a halt as a result at the companies that have done this.
This is the reason why systems engineers who are middle aged are not working.
I am still working at the same place I was before September 2008, but we have had our number of work days reduced by ten (an unpaid week at Christmas and spring break) and the state (Florida) has just added a 3% “contribution” to the state pension fund to our paychecks, which amounts to about $100 a month pay reduction.
Same for me (state employee in FL), but I was with the federal government from ’07-’10 and left voluntarily. Fortunately, I sort of saw Rick Scott’s election coming and asked for a salary with that assumption built in, although I’m sure it’ll get worse.
Glad FSU looks poised for a good season, because sold-out games = several million dollars pumped into the area every weekend. And we really need it after Rick Scott went scorched earth on the city.
Contrary to the general flow, we’re been doing better since ’08. Of course, we’d already hit bottom in ’07, after making 3 major relocations in 1 year to keep my husband employed. Then, we sorta lost everything–his job, my job, a house, no insurance, both of us got nearly fatal-sick, lost all sense of who we were and where we belonged.
Two more moves, two more jobs and we got down to him earning less than half of what he used to make with NO JOB SECURITY, no benefits. By then, we’d found ourselves in bedrock POOR country where houses with land are cheap and had gotten used to getting by on next to nothing so we kept living that way and–over the last three years–paid off our credit card debt, own our old cars, grow our own food, cut our expenses down to where we can live on measly SS retirement & Medicare benefits IF THEY’RE STILL GIVING ‘EM OUT in 2013 when we’re due to collect.
Otherwise, we’ll drop dead picking our home-grown produce and what is life about anyway. Really. My advice is GET OUT OF THE CITIES! Start living like you’re a dirt farmer in a Third-World Country. It’s the future.
Holy crap. Your first paragraph brought tears to my eyes, but your second paragraph was inspirational. Good on you guys for landing on your feet!
Same as it ever was. I’m at the same job as a public servant. (Since 1997)
got fired. thank God for the U.S. Census, which kept me afloat until I got my present job.
Announced retirement in September 2008 before the crash. Was asked to stay available as 1099 contractor. That lasted for a year before the contractor lost the contract; the tasks were automated away with a content management system.
My wife is working two part-time jobs because the economy is so slow (and one is in retail so we are expecting a loss of hours during Christmas).
Slave wages, BooMan? Really? “Room” and “board”? Subject to being sold to work for someone else?
What worked for me last time was doing some things that I liked doing with some new networks of people and doing volunteer work in my local community. (I ran a Saturday chess program at my local library.)
A lady in the neighborhood watch group needed someone to code HTML and was a manager for a subcontractor to a major government agency. No application. No interview. Just started work after filling out the W-4 and I-9. A month later got the security investigation and passed. Worked there for over four years.
One of the growth areas right now seems to be writing copy for corporate social media sites. A lot of small and medium-sized companies are trying to pick up social media marketing campaigns and don’t realize that the key is not to broadcast but build two-way relationships. Someone who can successfully do that potentially can make a little money.
Everybody is having trouble finding new work (and employers are having trouble finding people) because the “labor market” mechanisms are seriously broken. HR departments have tried to control hiring so much that (1) they are a bottleneck in sending candidates to the managers who are hiring, (2) they have closed every door to the corporation except the internet application, resulting in the spamming of resumes, (3) the keyword and “skill set” mentality does not produce either good candidates or good hires because it is easily gamed by people who give some thought to it. (4) candidates do not have the personal resources right now to be able to move where the jobs are. Leave aside that it’s not a real market because there is no running benchmark salary and benefit information based on each hire the way there is a running average bid-offered-sold price on securities. It is a patronage system, not a market system.
My wife and I have our own business and operate out of part of our home. We’ve lost a few clients who have gone do-it-yourself to save money, but still have plenty to keep busy. We work mainly in the restaurant industry and carved a little niche for ourselves back in the 80s. We make enough to get by ok, but will never have to be concerned with upper bracket tax rates. I consider us to be very lucky. Since we work with restaurants, we’re occasionally able to trade fees for food.
I was laid of January 2009, from a company that had come to lean too heavily on document reviews on properties whose mortgage-holders were selling the mortgages to big banks to be turned into MBSs.
Since then, I’ve been substitute teaching, tutoring, getting licenses, and trying to get hired into a full-time teaching position.
For a lot less money.
I was a student during the crash. Was planning on joining Peace Corps, but now that might not be able to happen. I received an email last Wednesday asking for an updated resume and my transcript, and I had to answer a questionnaire regarding teaching in a developing country. So it might still happen after all, as this means they’re still pushing my file along anyway.
In the mean time I’ve been traveling Europe and the United States, which is set to end tomorrow when I take my last train home. I am applying for full-time employment with engineering firms now, but kept my Peace Corps file open. I am going to try substitute teaching while I wait to hear from a “real job” and Peace Corps. I need to have something by November, as that’s when my loans start coming in. By my calculations, I need around $597 a month to pay them off (over a 10 year period).
It’s my moonlighting/supplemental gig since my wages have been stagnant for ten years. Since the tsunami, and what the Japanese refer to as “The Lehman Shock” (the fall of Shearson Lehman) a lot of the evening business courses have been put on hold. This has hurt our dual income. Also, Ford sold its stock in Mazda during the meltdown, and all the Ford workers and their families left Hiroshima. My wife used to teach piano to loads of their children, so her income was halved. We are living under “heavy manners” as the Jamaicans used to say in the 70’s.
Been working the same job since the late ’90s. Small company — we’ve been growing, but very slowly, and not very much in the last two years. Had to do some small cut-backs, but we’re still afloat, which is better than a lot of small hi-tech firms have done.
Still doing the same thing since 1987 — self-employed as a proofreader for court reporters who do mostly pretrial depositions, some regulatory hearings and trials. Work flow is always erratic, from OMG I’ll be out in the streets soon to I’m drowning; was especially scary in the depths of the recession.
Hopefully I’ll be able to go on in this fashion till the arthritis in my fingers makes it impossible to hold a pen any longer.
I’ve been at the same DC based organization for 8 years. Austerity measures included the firing of about 100 employees whose positions were refilled in about 3 months and a 2 year freeze on pay increases and bonuses, but otherwise we’ve been financially healthy due in large part to growing corporate partnerships. My family as been quite fortunate that no one has lost jobs or income. My brother and sister-in-law took advantage of this buyers’ market and purchased the house of their dreams. I think it’s worth noting that our residences span PG County Maryland, DC and Arlington, VA where I see nothing but growth. That’s not to diminish the heart-breaking hardship across the country. But life for Africans Americans in this part of the country don’t fit the national narrative of a black depression.
It’s gonna get crazier before it gets better. Some nitwit’s idea of managing the Millennials:
Achievements, points and leaderboards hit the workplace with Engage for salesforce.com
Read and laugh or weep. It’s “No Worker Left Behind”
And I get sick of hearing how many jobs have been created in the past 2 years. Where? South Dakota?
“They” just need to STFU.
Out of work for over two years. Unemployment ran out. Lost the house, the car, the pets, my credit rating. Moved across the country to CA to start over. My brother took me in luckily. I am 60 yo and am now going BACK to school to become a medical coder. It is a nightmare. 5 years til SS and Medicare. I am counting down the years. I never thought I’d be happy about turning 65. Even when I do finish school in 8 months, no guarantee of a job. And now I’m in debt for 14K in financial aid.
I really don’t get how I am still standing. I must be tougher than I thought. This country is a mess. What is sad is there are MILLIONS like me who have no brother or family to take them in. I consider myself kind of lucky I have a good brother. He saved me, literally. I was suicidal-he pulled me back from the edge.
I am working at the same company but I moved up to a better job. I’ve been out of work during other downturns and it sucks. I wish you the best of luck in finding something.
Nope. Was working in biotech and got laid off. Now I’m back in academia hoping that the PI’s grant renewal gets funded so there’s money to pay us peons.
I’m doing better now than in ’08, when I wasn’t working. Although then at least I had health insurance, COBRA ran out in ’09. I was unemployed for 3 years starting in Sept ’06.
I’m working now as a software contractor, part time (30ish hrs/wk). My gross income will look pretty good this year, but with no benefits.
In 2009, I got a new job in SD as a director in a health care organization. The job included a substantial increase in pay and status.
I’m pretty fortunate in that I work for a very stable organization with very little turnover. It has a retirement and insurance package that’s pretty generous by today’s standards. I’ve been here 27 years, doing essentially the same job for the last ten or so. My job involves a lot of very specialized, very localized knowledge, so it’s about as secure as any job is these days.
The downside is all that local knowledge is totally non-portable, and I’m about three weeks from my 60th birthday, which means if I lose this job for any reason I’m essentially unemployable by anybody for anything better than being a greeter at Walmart (not likely) or picking up cans on the side of the road.
But then, thanks to a lifetime of hard work by my Dad, I own the family farm free and clear. There’s about zero chance I could make a living farming it the way things are now, but like sjct I could have a really big garden if I wanted to.
I’ve been in the same profession since 2004, I had my first job as a Med Tech in 2004 in New Orleans and then Katrina happened, and now I’ve had the same job Med Tech since 2005 here in DFW.
My profession is such, that it is essentially “recession proof”. In fact, it one of the reasons why I chose to become a Med Tech (the other being because I happen to love working in the lab). If there a hospital or private laboratory org anywhere around, then I have the qualifications to fill that position…at least on paper.
It’s one of the few medical professions outside of RN and MD where there is “minimal” educational qualifications (usually Bachelors in Medical Technology/Clinical Laboratory Sciences) and a “Generalist” certification meaning you have been trained an education to work in any part of the clinical laboratory setting (i.e. hospital, reference, research…etc).
It’s one of the reasons that I continually recommend it to people who are medically inclined, like science, and may or may not want to use a “stepping stone” into medicine.
…I started at this job on August 30, 2008. Close enough to the crash for you? The job is political organizer for a Union. Difficult enough of an industry for you?
Fortunately, I’ve been able to stick around. I came from rank-and-file (hospital worker). That I was able to gain this position without a degree and with only a couple of years of political campaign work says good things about my Union. I’ve been able to grow into the job a bit, and I’m glad I’m appreciated by members, staff, and my boss.
I totally agree with u. working hard will always show this result
good wishes
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