So sad about redundancies

[CathyandHeathcliff]

We’re in the fortunate position so far not to have been in line for a redundancy. But I’ve just found out my close friend’s husband has. It’s really sad as they have a toddler and have only just bought their own house.
I’ve also heard today about Boots letting thousands of people go.

Will we look back on this in years to come and think lockdown was an overreaction ? Are the outcome of job losses going to be greater than the virus itself?

Isitreally77. I'm sorry your in this awful situation.
What will you do?
My advice would be to keep your job for now and see how things pan out. It's easier to find a job when you already have one and you could negotiate a different rate , or come to some agreement, with the mortgage company. Let them know what's going on at least. I know banks are not always massively helpful, but you never know.
Once things pick up you might find they put you back on full pay or the company might get some help from the government to retain staff.
Being redundant and looking for work will be really hard the next few months as so many become unemployed. :(
I hope things work out for you. I know a few people in this situation. One took redundancy and is now on UC. Took weeks to come through for her and isn't a huge amount to try and live on.

No I don't think lockdown was an over reaction. It saved many many lives and ensured many others did not die in childbirth or when they had accidents as it kept the nhs from being overwhelmed which did happen in Italy. People have short memories. What we have to do now is make sure people have a financial safety net and this government need to provide that.

I have been impacted to some degree but not seriously like some.

I thought it was a massive over reaction. Builders all stopping work for example when one of the lowest risk activities. It was more about the government implementing a mentality to frighten people silly...which has been extremely effective.

The younger ones are now starting to go out but I look at middle age friends and neighbours and they are just not going out to shop unless they have to, or for meals out at all...too scared. Buses are near empty. The government is calculated how compliant people would be but also the longer term frightened mentality.

I am convinced Sweden took a better approach which was more sustainable in the longer term. However no approach will deal with the issues that occurred in leicester!

Lockdown wasn't an over-reaction. Schools and hospital wards were closing anyway due to staff shortages (covid and self isolating staff). We had exponential growth. We needed a very robust response and it worked.

I know of a few people that have been made redundant recently, applying for jobs but no success so far. People’s habits are changing, if this is to be the new normal, it’s inevitable that more jobs will go.

Whether lockdown was an overreaction or not is difficult to assess now. Had we not locked down we would have had huge number of deaths that would also have impacted economy. People's behaviour would have changed anyway with people not shopping on high Street etc...

I think people now need to start asking questions about how as a society we support people without work. Is UC enough?I think we also need to ask questions about decisions some companies are making to protect profits by making people redundant - not all but some are.

The 2008 crash affected us as a family and we never recovered and have had no help from gov. I now realise how my pre lockdown life was very similar to lockdown. An economy built on consumer spending is always going to be wobbly.

We didn’t have enough refrigerated trucks for more bodies. If we’d let it run it’s course without lockdown, we would have had bodies on the streets. Even more dead health care workers, bus drivers, pensioners and their carers, people with disabilities and Black and Asian colleagues.

The job of the government now is to make sure the gap between rich and poor is not widened by ensuring the load isn’t carried by the poorer people in the population. But this government won’t do that.

I hate the implication that the vulnerable who we were protecting were expendable somehow.

Honestly, I feel lockdown was justified however am glad we are now starting the enconmey again. I feel the government have done the best they can for such unprecedented time.

I hope next time there is a pandemic, the country will be more fully prepared.

Bodies on the streets? There were threads on here and news stories about hospitals being half-empty and this was in March and April.

Of course lockdown was an over-reaction. As a result, we're heading into a recession much worse than any in modern history with many lives already destroyed and many more to come.

We have a toddler and a baby on the way. DH was made redundant this week.

I think the picture varied depending on where you were. There were issues with storing bodies in London - they were shown in stuffed full refrigerated trucks which had reached capacity.

The redundancies are terrible. My DH is affected as almost all income gone til 2021.

But lockdown was not an over reaction.

Please look at countries that locked down earlier, harder and had better public health systems - they opened faster and will have less impact.

Countries that locked down less - especially the USA - are seeing even higher rates of job losses.

We needed better leadership in Feb/March. We could have prevented it getting such a hold, and then we'd have cleared it better.

We still don't have a working track & trace system.

The redundancies are terrible, but it was the political failure to do anything at the start that made both the death rate and the economic damage so bad.

We couldn't have pretended the virus wasn't here, and we didn't have the health systems to manage. That is due to political choices.

@ukgift2016

Honestly, I feel lockdown was justified however am glad we are now starting the enconmey again. I feel the government have done the best they can for such unprecedented time.

I hope next time there is a pandemic, the country will be more fully prepared.

When I read this I feel very as our government absolutely did not do the best they could. They thoroughly mismanaged it, and if this is the best they could do they are clearly not fit to be in charge.

The country was more fully prepared BEFORE the government cut public health, cut the pandemic ppe stockpile, and restructured the NHS.

The PM couldn't be bothered to chair COBRA himself at the start. That is not doing his best!

Some companies have taken huge advantage of the situation. I work for a large manufacturing company- you will have all heard of the name - and we have been very busy as displayed by the huge number of enquiries and orders we take daily.

Yet, as soon as the government furlough scheme was announced they furloughed as many people as they could, ran their stock levels right down, brought the furloughed back to get the stock levels back up with a view to re-furlough again in the next few months.

No topped up salary for staff (so they are saving all those salaries) and if staff have to self isolate and can’t work from home then tough you have SSP for the two weeks.

I see the sheer amount of orders being placed, we are making millions and yet they are playing the game to their advantage. They’ll also now get this 1k bonus no doubt as they’d have kept the staff. It’s absolutely disgusting and there should be someone staff can complain to in confidence.

All the evidence shows if the government had made the decision to lockdown earlier with clearer parameters then we would have locked down for z shorter period of time and it would be better for the economy.

The lack of decision making as ever and then the ridiculous amount of £££££ spent of the track and trace spp/system that doesn't work.

And then of course no deal brexit to look forward to.

and I agree with gnarly there is evidence lots of companies have played the system. Also quite a few self employed builders have taken the government grant and carried on working throughout.

Lockdown was a total over reaction- it should never have happened. Anyone at risk or over 60/65 should have had to lockdown, everyone else should have carried on as normal.

Lockdown has cost people their jobs, their homes, it's caused suicide, it's caused preventable deaths due to stopping treatment of cancer, children have missed out on vital eduction, domestic violence has risen and so much more.

It wasn't worth it.

It’s sad. Especially for those who bought a house just before lockdown and now can’t afford their new mortgages :(

we can’t sell or rent the property for 6 months (As per mortgage lender rules - trust me I have pleaded with them!) and it’s a really awful position to be in when your only option is to move away for work.

Luckily we have some savings but I can imagine most people don’t have much money left over after buying a new house

@Gnarlytoe Hmrc have a furlough fraud helpline, might be worth looking into.

Many businesses have done very nicely out of this.

Totally agree some companies have taken advantage and also this £1000 furlough retention is just a waste of money as it going to the companies who were already bringing people back.

They have done almost nothing to limit the impacts. They ignored it at the start and then we all paid for it.

And their choices are the reason the UK will be worst affected in Europe, both in terms of deaths and economy.

Those who say we shouldn't have locked down - how many deaths were you prepared to see? Honestly?

I prefer the German model, fewer deaths, less economic damage.

[quote userxx]**@Gnarlytoe Hmrc have a furlough fraud helpline, might be worth looking into.

Many businesses have done very nicely out of this. [/quote]
It is fraud that @Gnarlytoe is describing, just playing the system.

Oh dear, typing error - it ISN'T fraud is what I meant above.

The big problem nowadays is that so many people rely totally on two incomes coming in if in a couple and so many people live right up to their income. The planning for a rainy day that the older generation did is not as common now as it was and so when the rainy day comes, there is nothing in the pot. This is going to affect so many people financially. I actually think that some of the wealth accrued at the top of he chain should be passed down to children where there is a need like this.

My brother has just been made redundant and his wife is part time due to their children being pre school. I know they will be in big trouble as he doesn’t have many qualifications and will struggle to get a job that pays anywhere near what he is on now. He will get bought redundancy to last a couple of months or so but no longer. My mum could help out as her pension income is guaranteed, she has no debt and lots of savings but she clings on to it for dear life. I hope she helps this time if he needs it in a few months.

The big problem nowadays is that so many people rely totally on two incomes coming in if in a couple and so many people live right up to their income

Yep. Unfortunately the cost of housing means people don't have a choice.

This has actually made me make a conscious decision to limit our fixed outgoings in future. So where I might have put a new kitchen on credit, I absolutely won't now. We've decided as a couple to not borrow any more money for anything unless absolutely necessary (Ie boilers broken and we need a complete replacement kinda thing!) Were going to try and get out outgoings to as close to one wage as we can.. just in case.

We need about 1 and a half wages to meet bills right now. This makes me feel a bit better as if one of us did lose our job a min wage part time job would cover it, and round here there seems to be stuff like that available. Usually jobs nobody wants but I wouldn't care.

We are lucky to live in quite a cheap area but our house in comparison to an area 2 mins down the road was quite costly so if we absolutely had to we could sell up, out a hefty deposit on a very cheap house without having to totally relocate. Many people can't do this.

We have always worked on the basis of being able to pay our bills on one wage .We have generally earned much the same but the second wage has been for holidays/treats /savings.

Most of our friends have bigger houses ,fancy cars etc but I need the piece of mind