Job Security?

[The OC Scam]

With all the lay offs within companies directly related to the housing crisis. The ripple effect is coming and in my industry it has come fast!

Three major title companies including now “First America Title” laying off 1600 more employees has a dramatic effect on the survivability of IT and Telecom service companies that provide 24/7 support and equipment sales.

We have seen huge accounts fall from the sky! The prices may fall and so may more jobs including mine….

[bsrsharma]

my industry

Can you describe that a little, please? Sounds like IT & Telecom service company. How are you so tightly coupled to Title companies?

[The OC Scam]

Had large contracts with support of IT and Telecom equipment they purchase directly from my company..

[golfproz]

There will be large ripple effects from the real estate/mortgage downturn. The company I worked for in the late 90’s went belly up because of the dotcom bust. We had nothing to do with dotcoms. We made commercial UPS’s and STS’s (big fancy electrical switches). When the dotcoms failed they stopped buying equipment so did many of the banks and investment companies that were expanding because of the dotcom bubble. We saw our biz drop 80% in a year and the company eventually went under. Ripple effect in action!

[CostaMesa]

Another of those sad facts of life things…

Expensive, non-management, employees tend to go before anyone else. That is, unless one of the MBAs has decided to move the remaining shards of domestic productivity offshore. Then the expensive guys get to train a whole new bunch of folks how to make widgets before they get axed.

Moral of the story: DON’T GET AN ENGINEERING DEGREE IN THE USA!

[Coronita]

There is no such thing as job security. anywhere, any profession. The quicker folks come to terms with that, the better off one would be. That said, one shouldn't live in perpetual fear over losing a job. Otherwise life would suck.

[Coronita]

Actually, costa mesa, in a RIF, mostly middle/low management gets cut. Because there's always a plethora of low management.

 

Lazy, overpaid engineers get cut. High performing, well valued usually dont. Hint, just make sure people value what your doing. Don't let them pigeon-hole you.

All those nay sayers about engineering. Good…I hope more people quit…Less of us, means higher demand. The markets are on fire now, but I guess it depends on what kind on engineering.

Folks need to quit whinning about the offshoring. If you're skills are that easily replaceable, time to differentiate yourself again, or switch professions. I plan to when I'm 40. But that's 8 years away.

 

[kewp]

Hehe, if the dollar collapses, India and China are going to be outsourcing to us!

Oh teh ironies!

But seriously, government, healthcare, higher education, well managed companies with a global reach, they are going to maintain. Unless we have some end of the world scenario; but heck, even then ya’ll will need engineers to build teepees and stuff.

[hipmatt]

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but I won’t feel too bad when the job market cleanses itself of all the useless and unproductive careers out there.

There are still too many RE agents, lenders, car salesmen, sleazy financial advisers(the ones with out a degree that sell mostly insurance and mutual funds), and self professed home flippers.

Many of these people will find out what it is like to work a real job in the near future.

[mixxalot]

Real careers versus OTJ fly by night pros

I agree- it takes hard work to become a real engineer, doctor, attorney or accountant or even a serious financial analyst the type that gets an MBA in Finance not a fly by night real estate school or car sales dirtbag. I worked hard for my degree at university.

[Navydoc]

“There is no such thing as job security. anywhere, any profession.”

I have to whole-heartedly disagree. I’ll tell you folks a little secret. I got burned in the early 90’s bubble bust in PA. Bought in 89, realized I could no longer afford the payments, and tried to sell. The only problem was my house was no longer worth what I paid for it, and I had no money to take to a closing table. Walked away in 93(Cramer would be proud). What did I do in the aftermath? I decided to go back to the old values, spent the next 12 years in training, worked my ass off, and became a physician. During the period I completely rebuilt my credit. You know what? It was all completely worth it. If that hadn’t happened to me earlier I may have jumped on the bandwagon this time around, and would have lost a whole lot more.

Now I’m an Obstetrician, and I find that when the economy gets particularly bad people still manage to find the time to perform just the very activity that tends to keep me in business!

[Coronita]

But seriously, government, healthcare, higher education, well managed companies with a global reach, they are going to maintain.

LOL, you're not serious about the government and healthcare are you?

Government: shrinking fed,state,local budgets aren't going to affect employment??

Healthcare: this is one big message waiting to happen. 

[Coronita]

"There is no such thing as job security. anywhere, any profession."

Until HMO's start eating into your bottom line.

 

[Coronita]

Real careers versus OTJ fly by night pros

I agree- it takes hard work to become a real engineer, doctor, attorney or accountant or even a serious financial analyst the type that gets an MBA in Finance not a fly by night real estate school or car sales dirtbag. I worked hard for my degree at university.

 

Exactly. A good portion of the dot com workers got outsourced. Because of just that. They were working in the lowly entry level HTML writer,  "hello world" programmer that a good college or even high school grad could essentially do, and paid ridiculous compensation to do it and never spent the time to raise the bar above that. After the dot bomb imploded, the justification for pay that salary to do entry level work vaporized. That's really too bad, because that was a free entry pass for anyone who wanted to enter tech positions.  Of course most of them were only interested in the IPOs that never materialized or imploded. So most of them got weeded out by some folks in bangalore. The entire outsourcing this is overblown. It's really not cheap to hire outsource labor in banglaore anyone. The cost is around $50/hr-$75/hr anyway, plus you have to deal with the language barriers, timezone, logistics,etc. Plus you really can't outsource cutting edge innovation. Maintenence, and routine crap, call centers, perhaps. Now, you could open up a development center overseas. But that tendency is just a means to hire the best from everywhere in the world.

The issue with a lot of these professions is that we get complacent as the years progress. We get use to living a cushy job, and gradually wither relative to our younger versions. I'm guilty of this myself, which I why age 40 is my magic number. That's the time where plan b goes into effect.

 

[Navydoc]

“Until HMO’s start eating into your bottom line”

Don’t have to worry about that. It’s the reason why I’m still in the Navy.

[Author]

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