Darn economy!
 

Well I got laid off today. I thought working for a smaller company had stability, boy was I wrong. Thank god I finished my tank before today. Anyone else feeling the economy slump?

i work in a motorcycle shop and it's hurtin... yes it's winter... but you can see it every day.. sorry about your job

The telephone business has definitely slowed down in Vancouver. I am the owner of a small business. Big and small - we are all feeling it.

Sorry to hear you were laid off. Make the best of it by improving some skills, and you will get hired again in no time!

I was handed the pink paper yesterday.:neutral:

Oh man. Sorry guys....that really sucks :( My job relies entirely upon government funding and private donations, so who knows. Unfortunately, underage sexual exploitation doesn't stop, despite an economic slump; fortunately, that means I probably will get to keep my job.

I'm going back to school in March anyways. They gave me a months severance thank god.

I just heard on the news yesterday that Calgary has the best economy in the World. (First Canada, then Calgary, is the best in Canada).

Bignose and MacheteAve sorry to hear about your jobs. Hopefully things start to turn around quickly.

Heck no we are still going strong up here. Talismen just booked both our trucks for 10 days in Fox Creek and scince then we have been working for Galleon or CNRL non stop scince new years.

???

LOL...I wouldn't even be able to guess what this means.

I know you BC boys dont really focus on the oilfield do ya? Oilfield basically runs the alberta economy. A falling oilfield means a falling economy. Look at southern Alberta compared to northern alberta.

Hahahaha! No I do know that but I didn't even know you were talking about the oilfield :D

We'll your Northern Alberta might be doing great but mine isn't. I am in Fort Mac and was part of the Suncor Layoffs. But was fortunate enough to get another one job. But let me tell you it is not pretty up here. There is next to nothing going on around here nor will there be for awhile.

Ya I heard they are shutting down the oil sands. Here in Grande Prairie we have been oing pretty hard.

We are lucky alot of our customers are willing to wait a few days for our truck. They say its worth it. Our other shop in Red Deer alot of the guy have been coming up here on jobs. Seen more RD trucks in the yard then ever before. I think at one time we had half our Coil Rigs here. Pretty shocking when in GP we only have 1 Coil rig and 2 n2 pumpers.

i work in construction insulating houses and havnt had a day off in a while, people keep telling me im going out of business but so far ive been good. i dont think the drunks will do ok but people who actually work will.

The economy changed so fast. I knew it was going to happen but not like this!

The downturn in oil and gas is crappy right now but that`s the way she goes, up and down. It seems that everytime there is a boom and people are buying million dollar homes and RV`s and race cars that they forgot about the last bust :p

My company should make it through in the end, we have good strong financial backing from our Japanese parent company, but who knows.. I might be standing in line at the soup kitchen before the end of the year myself.

Funny, that's what our local politicians are saying about Vancouver as well :)

If people would just stop watching the news there would be no economic meltdown! Its all caused by media hype.

Sorry to hear about job losses on the forum here. Logging industry sucks, well more like a dinosaur, pretty much extinct for us. :(

Really?
I have to disagree with you along with i am sure everyone else that has lost there job in the last couple months.This is far from media hype.

I think the media is contributing, though. People hear times are bad, so they don't buy things in the store or go out for dinner. Stores and restaurants lose money, so lay off staff... I've read a few 'survey' stories now where people are asked if they plan to stop spending. When the majority say they will, I can't help but feel that will make others think twice about spending money, too....

I'm laid off at the moment as well. I have a BComm and I'm a second year Carpenter apprentice but there just isn't any work here.

media does affect peoples decisions, but in this case I think it is a good thing they are pointing out the downturn. If they were not then people would spend more and probably worry about paying it later, without realizing the whole worlds economies have slowed down. This in turn would cause these people to get hit even harder when the slowdown affects them.
I run my own business lending out money to people who can't get it from the bank or need it really quickly, since September I've had to reposess on properties, which I've been lucky enough to never have had to do in years. Some of the people you feel bad for, but others just continued to travel, eat lavish dinners, buy new cars, and then when money is not coming in for them anymore they don't know what happened, or how it happened.
There is a fine line between enjoying life and living within ones means (tend to get through these times), and just blowing money believing that nothing will affect them.

Talisman seems to be in a better position then some other companies who set their budget with oil at $40, $50, and even $60 a barrel. The company set our budget at approximately $30 a barrel, and have recently started redeploying and moving into unconventional drilling. While we are well positioned, and are not currently laying off anyone, we are re-deploying people to different projects. Although right now we are experiencing a hiring freeze, and I suspect if the economy worsens, then the company will begin layoffs.

Sorry guys about having been handed your pick slips, I hope things perk up and you make it through this unscathed. It sucks because its hard on everyone.

LOL, as long as it keeps translating to my husbands industry and mine...I am thankful..:smile:

I was laid off in December, waiting for EI right now. I have had 2 interviews in the past month, no offers yet.

I'm going to school in a month so I doubt anyone will hire me for a month.

You could have your choice of places to use your trade out here.

Sfunny...
I got a raise last month.
Guess thats what happens when you lose half your business due to market conditions and your boss is afraid you'll lose the other half if you leave.

I work in the financial industry, sort of on the frontline of all this b.s. and while the media does play it's part in market manipulation, they are merely doing exactly what the talking heads expected and planned for them to do.

I also have a few friends who aren't drunk who have lost their jobs, one of them an insulator, just thought that comment was a little ignorant, especially to those who have been laid off and are not "drunks".

anyone in the stock market at all here?
I'm looking around now and thinking this is the greatest opportunity of my life to create wealth, at least as far as canadian public companies go (like talisman and suncor for that matter)

The fallout from american overspending and the "aaa" mortgage backed paper that got us all into this mess will be long lasting, but the fed and governments all over the world are taking larger and swifter steps to combat it then ever before in history.

This recession has affected the service industries so far, it'll be the retail, tourism and small businesses that will have to watch the bottom line now as the layoffs trickle their way down through the economy

Take it as a good sign that since lehman brothers, we haven't seen any other major financial institutions crack and falter YET.
this should have been much worse, and it seems that the unprecedented steps being taken by those that allowed this all to occur under their noses is working, so far....

Sorry about your job :(

My company just laid off 10% of the office, despite exceeding Q4 expectations and buying a another company for 3/4 of a billion. I hate when companies see their employees as liabilities and not assets. Makes we want to quit.

You see tighter purse strings everywhere and more big brother spending watching.

Really sorry to hear about this.

Unfortunately business is booming where I work - which is in a lawfirm. Insolvency, foreclosure and litigation are booming right now so I do not think this is all media hype.

Some of you might want to watch who you name and what you say on this public forum -with all the new privacy legislation you could get into some hot water. Just saying...

uhhh?
examples?

Yes, losing one's job is definitely a time of stress. Sorry to hear about anyone's misfortune in that regard. I'm on a fixed income, but it is an income so I'm lucky not to have to rely on full time employment...yet.

I guess I could say I'm in the market with my RRSP Mutual Fund portfolio. It's bleeding red big time at the moment and really too late to do anything about it. Just have to wait and ride it out. I certainly don't have the cash to take advantage of the low market prices right now. I'm in no position to take out a loan to buy stuff, especially stocks. And there aren't any gov't programs that are going to get me pulling any money out of my RRSP at a loss and start spending it to help get the economy going again.... even though the 'renovation' package recently announced sounds very tempting. My old house is in need of some upgrades.

Hang in there everyone, Canada is and will remain the best place to be, no matter what. The Okanagan valley offers everything I need to enjoy life, ski in the winter, the odd trip into the backcountry, motorcycle/canoe in the summer. No need for high priced vacations to the tropics for me.

Naming companies is not a good idea, naming companies and saying not to work for them because their foreman is a jerk or whatever could get you sued on a personal level, especially if there is only one person who is a foreman. Oil companies are cut-throat competitive as well and would not appreciate workers saying who is doing well, who is cutting back, etc. We are not allowed to post vendor reviews because of the liability issues. Just letting you know that kind of thing can attract liability issues as well.

i see what you mean.

Oh man, I feel for ya mike.
Some of those rrsp fund managers really blew it without doing due diligence on what they were buying.
Others, they made all the safe calls, but just got pulled down with the rest of us in the panic sell off of EVERYTHING in October.
Good point on Canada, our banks were much smarter than just about everyone elses and we are exceptionally rich in resources compared to 90% of the world.

Thanks, but no worries. I'm still in good shape, no debts and I'm very patient when I need to be. Feel for those that actually lost their job...

feel worse for those who lost their retirement in mutual fund/rrsp's that were supposed to be 0 risk...

I got layed off last week and found a new job back at the pressure shop. I'm fitter/welder and I sand blast and paint on the side. Took a big pay from the ship yard to the shop, But lots of over time for the next week and that no work. My dad works for Sunco on one of the new biulds but they are slowing down untill April. Eveyone say we will be picking up in April.
In Vancauver we have the 2010 hole (games) with lots of biulds todo.