Bad News Laid Bare

Although I don't necessarily agree with all of the predictions and recommendations offered at the site or espoused by its publisher, Eric Janszen, iTulip.com is a great resource for news and commentary. One good example includes a recent post in its discussion forum, "Report from the Front: Conditions of Employers," which reveals some eye-opening "first and second person accounts of business conditions," as follows:

Two weeks ago in Unemployment by industry: Recession or depression? we published our bottom-up, data driven analysis of future unemployment that estimated 10 million job losses in 2009, and identified the industries likely to the affected most and least. Last week one of our members posted a thread entitled “How the Economic Crisis/Recession has Affected Your Job and Your Employer” that so far has elicited over 50 responses from across the US, with a few from the UK and Australia covering a broad range of professions. The comments reveal the speed and breadth of the decline in many industries, but also highlights a few bright spots, such as in disinfrastructure, also known as the Defense Industry.

Professions represented in the comments include:

ER doctor
Oil industry engineer
Semiconductor engineer
Piano repair specialist
Machinist
Executive search business owner
Financial analyst
Video game industry software engineer
Restaurant worker
Intellectual property attorney
Professional gambler
Advertising agency owner
Electronics supply business owner
Independent Consultant and Software Engineer in Defense Research
Systems Engineer for a large computer company
University staff
NASCAR race team research engineer
Software engineer for a small software house
Commercial airline pilot
Real estate developer
IT professional for a loan servicing company
Aerospace/Defense electronics manufacturing business owner
Well drilling and well service firm owner
Advertising business owner
Corporate R&D scientist in the biomedical industry
And more.

Summary observations in line with our forecast:

Most readers in most industries are experiencing job declines
The economy hit an unemployment inflection point in October 2008
FIRE Economy players who were able to hang on to bubble era winnings (e.g., hedge fund managers) are still spending heavily
Defense industry is still hiring (we call it the disinfrastructure industry)
Federal spending is still strong but state spending is collapsing along with state budgets as state and local tax revenues implode
The recession has still not widely changed spending and savings habits yet; not until Q2 2009 will the malls clear out
The unemployed are filing out of the collapsing FIRE Economy and trying to file into productive industries such as health care but are finding few opportunities
The unemployed are trying to leave high unemployment areas for greener pastures but the local housing market is making moves to new job locations difficult because some housing markets simply have no buyers
Experienced professionals who are not willing to take major pay cuts are being laid off while less experienced, lower cost employees are kept

Observations that contradict our forecast:

Unlike previous recessions since the 1980s, even the health care and education industries are suffering due to misguided FIRE Economy investment practices that caused them expand budgets and take on enormous debts and imploding state budgets funded by income and real estate taxes.

Summary forecast and recommendations:

The next leg of the depression, fueled by high unemployment, started in Q4 2008 and will continue for several years
Go where the jobs are, geographically and by industry, before others beat you to it (e.g., if you you teach K-12, don't stay in a area that families are leaving. Go to regions where they are headed).
Avoid housing bubble ground zero regions like Florida, Nevada, Arizona, and parts of California
A bad economy is a good time to start a business if you have the cash, with access to great talent and low fixed costs like salaries and rents
Weakness in alternative energy industry confirms our opinion: don’t invest in “green” until the spending programs are underway; substituting government credit for private credit is not an instantaneous process.
Read on for personal accounts from our members.

Chart from Unemployment by industry: Recession or depression?

1. Fortunately my company is in pretty good shape. I work in the manufacturing sector for a corporation in the U.S. and we have benefited from being cash rich and competitors getting out of some of our business segments and we are getting their customers. We've had some down days at my facility and four-day work-weeks due to demand, no real layoffs yet. It wouldn't surprise me if some of our contract labor gets let go soon.

2. I am a doc in a community Emergency Department in the Northeast. Our volume is down 10% this year. I don't know if the problem is people unwilling to pay the co-pay, or coverage is down, or if it is a fluke. It has forced our group to cut back coverage hours which has been workable so far but can be dicey when multiple unstable patients present at the same time. We are running very thin at the moment, as our payer population wasn't great to begin with.

The hospital itself has had solvency issues, which up until recently I figured would not be an issue as someone would eventually back us, if even the state. Now I am not so sure as state budgets are getting killed and we could go under. Fortunately our group is affiliated with a large university and there are multiple job openings in the area. I don't own a house and my job is portable, so we will be fine as a family. The local community I am concerned about, however.

3. Working in oil industry in engineering position I still feel pretty good. Even though most companies have stopped the rush for new people I do not foresee the layoffs in US. If there are layoffs these will be really ugly I would expect companies will force to retire baby boomers. My company stopped recruiting professionals with 15 to 20+ year of experience but was still recruiting fresh folks. The only bad thing is with these falling oil prices salaries will stop the recent rapid growth.

Even in a recession, people still want to drive the car so we need to find, develop and produce fuel for it.

4. I am in the professional and business services sector in the bar chart above. The company I work for has had a good year but the guys upstairs are quite concerned about the future. Our Christmas bonus will probably be about half the usual, and no raises next year. Our main concern is our clients ability to get funding. Some of our work has historically been "recession-proof", but I do not know if that will hold true in an extended depression.

5. I'm a blue-collar worker in manufacturing. In a flat industry, our company was actually growing the last couple of years. We recently merged with one of our competitors, and while our company is doing well, production is leaving the facility that I work at. We're not looking at layoffs yet, but certain areas will be on shortened work weeks.

I work in maintenance, my particular craft is still in high demand, and I would say that is true in general for skilled crafts. People don't seem to be as interested in working the trades any more with all the emphasis on high tech and computers. I have a feeling that might be changing in the near future. In our merger the areas that are getting job cuts are all white-collar jobs in management, marketing and sales, etc. I don't see my job going away any time soon, and I feel confident in my ability to get a job regardless.

One of the bad things has been that my annual raises haven't kept up with inflation over the years I've worked here, but I've been able to increase my wages by getting more skilled jobs, and working to increase my technical skills. This recession and downturn might delay my retirement some, but I don't see it affecting me too badly. My only debt is my mortgage, and house prices where I live have remained level. The recession means that I'll be able to make improvements on my house at a discount. Cash is king.

6. I work for an arts related non-profit. I had been looking for a new job actively before this crisis hit but I might ride it out here for a bit longer before doing so at this point. A lot of foundations base giving rates on three year cycles, so we're likely to weather the storm quite well for at least a while. Maybe if I'm lucky by the time things start looking down here things will be picking up elsewhere.

7. This year's annual donor's campaign has definitely been slow, especially at the high end of giving.

8. A few days ago I spoke with a friend who is active in executive search. She said back in October it was like someone turned off a faucet across all industries and up and down the executive hierarchy. There is virtually no hiring of executives happening.

This is especially disturbing because it is this time of year when recruiting efforts spool up in anticipation of Q1 budget disbursements for hiring.

9. I work for a bar and restaurant in a mostly rural, Northern California small town.

Business is not down compared to last year. People still want to socialize and catch a buzz. I have noticed that no one is talking about the economy anymore now that gas prices have come way down. Last summer, it was a topic for everyday.

10. Thankfully I was able to find gainful employment after my employer blew up, unlike my former CEO at Lehman.

11. I'm in the video game industry. The industry has continued the consolidation it’s been going through the last few years. It may be speeding up, but it is difficult to tell.

Very little direct impact so far. One challenge is hiring. Companies employ a large number of specialists in different domains, such as graphic programming, animators, and so on. The middle-to-top tier talent is spread out, as the industry has many hubs. If there is a lot of growth in your hub, hiring from elsewhere in the country or world has been commonplace.

One of the big hubs is in California. Anyone who owns a house down there isn't moving for obvious reasons. A lot of the senior talent owns homes. As a result, the hiring pool for Seattle, Vancouver and elsewhere is much smaller than it has been in the past.

Long term, this will probably cause projects to be killed which will endanger studios. It's odd how unemployment is going up but lack of qualified applicants may cause studio to consolidate and lay people off.

12. I repair and tune pianos in private homes and for piano retailers and the cruise ship industry. I call these three sources of income my three-legged stool.

The private homes business has stayed about the same so far. I primarily serve a fairly well-to-do territory.

My retailer friends are in deep doo-doo. This is true all across the country. Piano retailers going under left and right. Much of their business was furnishing nice newly bought homes with pianos these past several years. Now it seems they are hit not only by the housing collapse itself, but also by the more widespread contraction in durable goods sales as people batten down. While there are a certain number of good buyers still out there, there are so many going out of business sales with drastic price cuts that the buyers are avoiding the stores who may otherwise have been able to hang on and they are vulture-shopping the fails. Any potential survivor has to be able to wait this out. So there's a real triple whammy working against any dealer not yet gone under. And thus one of my three legs is unlikely to be there in 2009.

I have just received word from the (entry level) cruise ship industry that there will be drastic cutbacks in 2009 in the budget for our maintenance work. I know more details than I can really give out, but let's just say that leg has significantly weakened. It doesn't sound like they are in as much trouble as the retailers, but they are cutting back significantly on all kinds of things.

So all in all it looks like I've got about 1 1/2 legs left on my three-legged stool. But I feel worse for my retailer friends. Some have done it all their lives and don't have any other legs.

13. I work in IT -- project management and software development -- and it seems opportunity for new work is less than it was a couple of years ago. Recently, a multi year grant funded project through a local public university did not materialize as I expected it to. I'm considering leaving the industry or starting a business.

My wife is a family physician in a single practitioner office and her business has never been better. Nevertheless we are preparing for the worst by reducing expenses where possible. If things get really bad I will likely work together there full time which means I wont have to worry about landing IT jobs.

14. My main job is in academia, but I also started a bike shop recently, to address exactly the issues you bring up. All of our local bike shops are still focused on the high-end road and mountain bikes, and could care less about promoting bikes as transportation -- electric, cargo, and Xtracycle. Given that I've been tinkering with things like electric bikes since 1994, and riding an electric-assisted Xtracycle sports utility bike for 3 years now -- and saving $1000's per year in gas and parking costs -- I decided to bring some of that expertise into opening a shop. We started up just about a year ago, right before gas prices went crazy (but after I had started reading iTulip). Everyone says "your timing is very lucky," to which I respond, "it was not an accident." Even with gas prices dropping, we've been doing ok, for such a new business.

15. I work for a large corporate law firm - product liability litigation, IP litigation, patents, etc. The practice areas range from doing ok to booming. In downturns, generally, litigation goes on regardless. Lately it has been getting quite difficult to get clients to pay their bills though.

16. I work for a very small (~25 employee) optical sensing R&D company. Most of our business comes from federal R&D spending through the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Program, and the remainder is subcontract R&D work for prime government contractors and direct non-SBIR contracts from the government. Our fortunes are more closely tied to the R&D priorities of the government than to the immediate health of the economy, although my guess is that federal R&D spending is likely to get squeezed by other budget priorities. On the one hand, we recently added a permanent hire (analog CMOS design engineer) to our staff in order to bring more of the IC design work we do in-house; on the other hand, we are seeing fewer SBIR solicitations in the areas of our technical expertise, and there may be gap coming up about a year out if we don't line up more business. (I have recently spent more time boning up on polymer electronics with alternative energy applications, and less time studying laser radar for defense applications.)

Locally, I read that Oregon's unemployment rate is rising. Triquint Semiconductor, a local company which makes high-speed transistors for cell phones, recently laid off all its temporary employees. Also, I hear that Intel -- Oregon's largest employer -- has a hiring freeze in place, and yet the malls remain crowded.

I have been watching undeveloped land prices in the rural area outside the local high tech zone, and they have finally started to come down. That said, the asking prices are still much higher than prior to the bubble.

17. My brother-in-law owns a company related to advertising in Detroit. His original business had started stalling out early in 2008, so he expanded to a new line. The new line was doing well until about the start of October. Now the bottom has completely fallen out. Customers are canceling in droves on all lines. He has filed for bankruptcy and his house is in foreclosure.

18. I'm a professional gambler -- poker tournaments, futures trading, some other stuff. Turnout at the big buy-in poker tournaments is down by about 50% from last summer. A month ago, turnout was at all-time highs for $500 buy-in deep stack events. Now turnout for even the $500 buy-in events is falling sharply. I'd say down by roughly 50%. So the crash seems to be getting worse really fast. With respect to futures trading, volume is way off.

19. I am an Independent Consultant/Software Engineer in Defense Research in the Southwest. Business has gone down 50% each year for the last three. Just trying to let my kid finish High School where he started. He is done in May.

Housing market is surprisingly strong in the University area where I live but very slow else where. The economy is slowing down as the local Linens & Things and Circuit City closes. Foot traffic in malls is down – by looking at the parking lot, I am guessing 50%.

20. I work for a large, private, non-profit university medical center in the regulatory compliance field with the OSHA/EPA/Joint Commission. We're a large decentralized organization and my office is one of the few that provide service to all divisions -- undergrad, professional schools, hospital, satellite campuses --and we've been understaffed for years and have the bench-marking to prove it. Past downturns have resulted in institution wide hiring freezes and minimal salary increases. I think my job is fairly secure, but you never know. My wife teaches high school Spanish in a government school, but doesn't have tenure yet. I figure she's fairly secure, too. I could see salary cuts and furloughs happening to both of us, but can't see us both losing our jobs.

21. IT Technical Sales for one of the big computer companies.

Things have slowed down for us, but we're still driving in business.

I believe the corporate thinking is that there was a big pullback in 2001 to 2004 and that the upgrade cycle has come again -- invest money to save money. Also, several smaller competitors are failing out or people fear they won't survive -- so we win by default.
No layoffs yet, but we're on guard.

22. A neighbor of mine's son is a railroad engineer. He says most in his department has lost their jobs and he's been cut back to part time. He drives a freight train and he says there are no shipping containers coming from the coasts.

An American on the east coast stops buying products made in China, that are then shipped to the U.S. and railroad workers in Wyoming loose their jobs.

What a tangled web we've weaved.

23. I'm seriously considering picking up a job on the weekends. From what I know my employer is doing okay financially, but when the layoffs come I hope I'm not one of the expendable ones

Does working your arse off and not being the highest paid guy on the staff count for anything any more?

24. I work for a UK university and my contract expires in October. I am now looking for funding. Faculty here should be okay but there are rumours of US faculty being laid off as states in the US tighten spending.

25. I work for a fine art dealer. Business has been terrible, and the bellwether auctions in our field are today and tomorrow. It's a small company, but large for a gallery, with a lot of overhead. That said, the business's finances are clean, no debt. The owner also is loath to trim staff; in the 2001-02 recession no one was laid off, but no one got raises or bonuses either.

(The next day) Well, one of the two bell-weather sales just concluded -- Sotheby's. It was a disaster, with 40% of the lots unsold, and most of the rest around or below the low estimate. The best material sold and did fine, the rest tanked. Like other asset classes, there is a flight to quality in art, too, in turbulent economic times.

26. I work at a major university in the states. A dean told me it is the worst they have seen it financially at the university since they started here. There are rumors that one of the larger colleges at the university will be laying people off next year. They are currently doing things that will save them money during the holidays, like shutting the university down for a week here, half day there, etc.

Students are no longer getting as much money as they once did for a student loan due to new restrictions, so I figure that's going to start to hurt after awhile. For example, if a student goes full time in masters they can’t work. So they generally use part of their loan to live. Well, if that dries up -- which it has -- then they are going to start dropping out or going to cheaper schools. I figure it will be the cheaper school route or schools that offer tuition assistance before dropping out. I mean, where are these people going to go find jobs at in this economy?

Have not heard any rumors of faculty layoffs yet. I think they will cut staff jobs at my university before even thinking about touching faculty. One university near us is cutting its work force by 20% and they have frozen raises until 2011 or 2012, I forget which. They also went to four day work weeks over the summer. I think we will be doing the same next year.
Endowment, state government funding and donations are way and I mean way down. Unfortunately the school I work for counts on this heavily. Also, student body growth is down pretty significantly as well.
Next year is going to be interesting.

I work in the states for a NASCAR race team in the position of research engineer. Things are bad and a lot of folks have been laid off already. Several teams have shut down, others have merged, and some are limping through the off-season looking for sponsorship.

In a way a thoroughly unnecessary industry like racing is among the first to take a hit as sponsors and fans cut frivolous expenditures. On the other hand there is also an escapist quality to sports that will keep the doors open in very tough economic times, even if in a more modest form.

27. I'm employed as a software engineer for a small software house.
Business has not dropped off much.

However, management has canceled a large project that they were going to outsource to India but could not raise the funds to do it so they moved it in house. More work for me.

Still, I think my job is not safe as orders could dive at any moment.
The boss “joked” we could all lose our jobs if the economic crises carries on into next year.

28. I own a small electrical service company. We don't do new construction so that collapse didn't really affect us directly. I was down to one employee working part time, and finally just had to let him go. Business is off probably 60% from a year ago. A lot of my work had to do with home improvement, and I'm sure the fact people's homes are losing value meant they didn't want to keep sinking money into them. I'm left doing mostly repairs -- not very lucrative if you are honest -- and the occasional nice job for some wealthy customer. Some people still are spending. Installed three flat screen TVs outside for one guy recently. This is to go with the other 10 inside the house.

29. Not a scientific survey but just anecdotal evidence gathered from friends and "man on the street" interviews recently here in Southern Florida.

Airlines: They seemed to have already made the tough choices with all their Ch 11's over the past few years and have the flexibility to cut capacity rather easily. More layoffs will likely come but they seem out of the woods.

Air Charter: Down 40% or more.
Boat industry: Sales very weak but people at the very high end (super-yachts) of the market still bragging about good business. Boat & fishing charter business fell off a cliff. One friend who owns a yacht keeps it parked right now. he can afford to operate it but given that he is laying off people from his business, he feels it looks bad to go yachting.
Construction: Don't ask.
Consumer electronics: Local stores are not hiring extra Christmas help but sales relatively firm.
Hotels: They are practically giving away rooms. Bid your own price on priceline routinely gets 80% discount of rack rate in certain markets.
IT: Lots of layman need help with their computers, IT support guys are busy.
Law firms: firms associated with the FIRE Economy laying off staff. You'd think an increase in bankruptcy filings would offset decreases in other areas.
Real Estate: Most brokers talking their book. One very large broker told me over cocktails last week, that the market is "going to turn on a dime" any day now. Didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise but I did anyway. More and more 'for sale" signs appear every day even in the high -nd neighborhoods. there aren’t enough buyers out there to even handle the normal life event – moving to new job, new family, etc. -- sellers. It is disheartening to drive along the beach and see miles of empty luxury condos. South Florida has always been a capital haven for some wealthy south Americans to hide money from people like Hugo Chavez. There is still some of that but hardly enough to move the needle anymore.
Re-Habs/Conservation: A friend in the business of converting commercial buildings to modern energy efficient standards is turning away business. When energy costs peaked over the summer he said his customers were getting 100% ROI in 6 months, now with lower energy costs, maybe he'll lose some business.
Tourism: When passing along the usual tourist haunts here it seems a bit quieter than usual but the season hasn't started in earnest yet.
30. I'm the wife of a real estate developer. Need I say more?

Our house is on the market, and business is on the brink of bankruptcy. Times are scary. We've been living a great life with a great lifestyle forever. This was a tidal wave and we were caught in the perfect storm. I feel like my kids and I are the collateral damage. Luckily we are young enough to rebuild and not ever make the same mistakes again. I could have easily bailed out on my husband in these times -- a lot of anger/denial/etc. -- but we came together and will grow smarter through it. I'm now a reluctant partner in the developing business. Our goal is to stay in the game in some way through this.

31. I work in IT for a loan servicing company. We service sub prime, Alt A, Option ARMs -- the worst of the worst.

We were never an origination shop, thus when the sub prime market imploded we were not greatly impacted, except that the servicing packages we formerly bid on no longer exist. That equates to a runoff in the portfolio.

The emphasis of the operation has shifted from heavy collections to heavy loan modification work.

I'd say the outlook for the company is tentative. There may be opportunities that arise from the failure of other firms. That's the good thing about the servicing business -- it doesn't disappear, somebody's got to do it. We are a wholly owned subsidiary of a large financial player so our future is also subject to how they weather the storm. So far, so good.
Personally if the operation shuts down tomorrow I've got enough reserves to stay comfortable for a couple of years, longer if I really hunkered down (quit paying the mortgage and live "free" for a year, etc.)

32. I work for a Big-Four audit/tax/and consulting firm on the consulting side primarily in the area of the finance function. Our "pipeline" of future work in the Midwest is very slim. Some of the worse I've seen in my 10+ years in the business. Word is that the Southwest is still doing well due to residual effects of high energy prices months ago. The Southeast is near similar pain to the Midwest.

We had slim layoffs during the middle of summer and just completed layoffs of 400 people two weeks ago.

The month between Thanksgiving and New Years is typically a very slow time in our business. Very few decisions are made to start new projects until the New Year. We have some RFPs that we are responding to, but most will not start until 2009. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we are able to close some and start working again in January.

In addition, I'm prepping my resume and reconnecting to old contacts.

33. I work for a large defense contractor in the US. So far, business is booming. Obama is still a question mark, but he doesn't seem to be as anti-military now as he appeared during the campaign. In any case, I don't work on big-ticket defense systems but on little quick reaction projects that look like they're safe. One good thing about contracting with the US Federal Government is that the contracts are generally good for at least a year, so my department is funded through 2009.

Defense firms are still hiring like crazy. My friends and I have gotten calls from other contractors trying to convince us to jump over to their firm.

34. I'm an IT consultant and live in one of the top 50 richest counties in the US, Lake County, IL. My consulting company employs ~100 in Chicago and was born during the 2001 recession. October was our best month yet. I'm contracted through the end of the year and think I will be kept into the next.

Some areas have more foreclosing homes but most don't seem that bad. Big mall by me still seems pretty busy. Couple of the circuit cities closing are around here.

Friends seem to be doing okay. My brother works at a metal fabrication company that makes safes and slot machine enclosures where business seems to be okay. My uncle works at some kind of plant, not sure what exactly they make – steel metal stuff. Polish guys in the warehouse went from overtime available to no overtime and are now down to 32 hours a week. He seems to feel okay but my aunt is worried. My buddy's dad owns an injection molding shop, says the shop is still doing pretty well.

35. I own an Aerospace/Defense electronics manufacturing business. We've grown 23% this year and expect 25% growth next year. We're well positioned to maintain our business level even if defense spending gets cut later. In this environment, balancing reinvesting for growth and staying extremely lean and conserving cash is tricky.

We employee 50 people and the most difficult part is seeing how disconnected they seem to be from what is going on. I'm sure they all have family or friends who are directly affected, but I don't see a huge shift in attitudes or habits yet. I don't think many can grasp how severe the next couple of years are going to be....

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(Hat tip to Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter)

Comments

[stevflaming]

A bad economy is a good time to start a business if you have the cash, with access to great talent and low fixed costs like salaries and rents