Calling all lawyers , bankers , accountants and city types.....just how bad is this redundancy thing ?

[madamblackberry]

....lots of friends being made redundant.....I am a lawyer but most firms seem to be keeping it very quietly under wraps. Is that the general consensus ??

Should we all be worried ??

I'm in Investment Banking. From my viewpoint it's bad. Really bad. Redundancies are dripping through in most of the banks where I have friends (one here, one there, repeating over and over again). Looking at the business side, people aren't financing borrowings so companies cannot get their businesses out of first gear and are retracting from lack of funding. Where money is raised the shareholders are rejecting the issues, so a lot is ending up wiht the underwriters, which means that banks themselves are going to be much more reluctant to underwrite stuff; it is becoming a vicious circle.

My DH is a management consultant and their clients are renegotiating contracts and 'making do' instead of driving through projects (even those that save money long term are not getting the green light because people can't justify the short term costs)

My BIL is a civil engineer and his business had laid off 75% of staff and is only continuing becuase of public spending projects.

My 2 DB's run a property devt company, and their staff had to down tools yesterday because they are owed 100k by clients who now can't pay. They will probably go bankrupt.

A mate of ours phoned up my DH asking him to buy his car so that he could pay maintenance to his ExP this month - his business has dried up and he has no cash flow, and the local car dealer will only buy cars at half thieor market value because no-on eis buying.

Round our way houses in the £1m+ bracket are being cut by up to 25% (and that's just the asking prices), within 6 weeks of going on the market.

And the papers are making it all worse by continually highlighting the gloom, so people become reluctant to spend money, to buy house and so on. Vicious circles again.

I think we have had 50 years of improvements in standards of living and now have to go backwards a little to get to equilibrium, but people will fight it and it will be very painful because there is such a large inequality gap across society in terms of wealth distribution.

If you look at past 50 years people have financed their improved standards of living by (a) having dual income families, (b) borrowing off housing equity and eating up savings, (c) working longer hours than ever before, (d) using 'free' childcare form extended families to subsidise their lives
and (e) by 'borrowing' from their future pensions pots to pay for things today.

There's nowhere else to go now to grab more 'lifestyle' from, and inflation is going to erode us back to a point where weekends away and foereing holidays and 2 cars in the drive become a memory for many families.

But hey, at least Dexter is back on the telly.

foereing?

Ye gods, where did that spelling error come from?

hello,

i work in a v v junior position as an account assistant and have benn made redundant twice (this year). I am currently temping cos finding f/t permanent work has become is difficult and i need to bring in an income.

i thinks things will definitely get worse.

I am a contractor, work in finance and feel relieved that I no longer work for a bank. I think things will get worse and I am only hoping that contract work doesn't dry up.

I work for a bank and quite frankly it is hideous at the minute. We are going through a restructure, but it was announced and then we were told that it may take some weeks before the details (i.e. who has a job) would be sorted out. Over the last few days my boss has been asking for all sorts of technical info about what we do that she has never been interested in before.

Oh and also at my interim review my performance was rated very harshly compared to my year end one, although I haven't changed. It is deliberate policy presumably to keep bonuses low, but its miserable knowing that no matter how good a job I do, I will be lucky to a) have a job and b) get an average score.

Its hideously stressful and I'm now getting to the stage where I just want to know what is happening.

DH is a IT contractor, also in the financial sector and his phone has not rung much over the past few weeks.

We probably could survive on DHs salary alone provided he had steady contracting work, but it seems to be drying up, however I don't think they will be able to do without contractors in the medium term if they are trying to streamline processes and systems.

It's bad around here. Fee-earners not been hit yet but there is a recruitment freeze and support staff and support functions have been cut right back as have plans for office refurbs and new buildings etc. HR being slashed by 80% - seems incredible.

This explains why I can't find a job then. I have a law degree and a MSc in environmental management (Law and pollution) and I've been looking for a couple of months. It's bad, I've found nothing. I'll just carry on sewing at home. At least it almost covers the bills.

dh works in Technology for an investment bank and his department are still recruiting. He is not worried as he says that when things get tough they rely on technology in order to reduce the need for people. He just had a fantastic review so hopefully it will be those who are performing less well who will be affected but who knows?