Just today, my coworker got laid off as business is becoming slow.

God knows if its gonna be my turn next. :(

So far I haven't been affected as heavily since I'm a student with no major bills other than the small amount I have on my credit card and my student loans. The area my family lives in out in Iowa is also an incredibly stable area and isn't having many problems and is actually growing economically so they're fairly safe.

There's a lot of places in the country that aren't going to be affected or only minimally affected and in a lot of places I've been lately people seem to regard the media as just being alarmist and over-hyping things.

i live of other peoples taxes, and the government only lays off people they find extremely retarded (emphasis on extremely). and most people in my family are farmers.

Well, I can't find a job. I've been looking since I got my masters degree almost two years ago. I thought there was something wrong with *me.* It's sort of a relief to think it might be the economy. (So, please don't tell me it's just over-hype, because that's the only comfort I have holding my self-esteem together. Even if it's a lie, it makes me happy. :-P )

The recession has hit my parents hard who own their own business, they had to lay off four people last week out of the 16 employees that they had. :/

As for me, a general decline in sales and commissions of the hand made jewelry that I sell. I'm very happy at the moment that the book I'm writing isn't scheduled to go on book shelves until next summer instead of this year.

I teach afterschool classes in drawing, cartooning and animation. My registration has dropped significantly, and if I don't make minimum registration, the class is cancelled and I don't make any money! Boooo….

Well, for one, I'm eating a lot of rice, beans, and eggs. Heh. Meat? What's that? I remember faintly being able to afford meat. My family's been hit really hard, too- having trouble keeping electricity bills paid and what have you. Both my brother and I have spent the winter without heat- just can't afford it, on top of everything else.

@ Anise: I'm in the same boat; I've had two sessions of printmaking classes flat-out canceled because of lack of enrollment. So I haven't worked in almost six months. Eep.

But wait… there's more! My partner and I are trying to move back to New Orleans within the next year, but have had no luck finding any jobs in our field. I was going to bank on going back to bartending if I couldn't get a teaching gig, but my buddy who works at my old bar tells me that even with my experience, those jobs are really hard to find; and he's making about $500 less a week than he did last year. Also, we've got to sell our house in order to move, and of course, no one's buying houses. There's like, ten for sale in our part of the neighborhood alone; all way nicer than ours. I doubt we'll get back what we paid for it, let alone the money we put in to fixing it up.

Blech. I'm-a shut up. I shouldn't complain so much- I've got a roof over my head, I'm not starving, and I don't have a family to worry about taking care of. I'm better off than a lot of people.

No…my family is doing very well. My mother works as a chemist for Health Canada and my dad just got a new job as a professor, which is strangely way better than his last job as a rocket scientist. He's being paid the same amount but he's only teaching something like 4 classes a week this term.

Hyena H_ll
Blech. I'm-a shut up. I shouldn't complain so much- I've got a roof over my head, I'm not starving, and I don't have a family to worry about taking care of. I'm better off than a lot of people.

I've got the same attitude. I'm living with my parents. I'm so happy to have parents I can live with. I just wish I could shoulder some of the financial burden around here.

It hasn't.

And this is coming from the guy that lives on 20 bucks a week.

It hasn't affected me presently. Except I am more and more anxious that I will be laid off. Plus my 401K went down. A LOT. But as long as I die young, I should be okay.

It's actually affected my family both positively and negatively. The recession increased our chances of getting a higher-quality house in Liverpool for when we move. We found one and we would've ended up there too if it wasn't for that pesky NORTHERN ROCK saying that we lived too far away for them to give us a mortgage for it. Yet, strangely enough they'd allow people working on oil rigs and away in Afghanistan and Iraq to do it.

In a negative way, the only person likely to find a proper job down south at the moment is my mum. My dad's defo gonna have issues due to his age, and so are my sister and I.
I already found it hard to get a job BEFORE the recession due to me trying to find my first job. I've technically got one for now. But it's only a 6 week temporary volunteer placement and I only have 8 hours a week doing it.

I'm applying for a college course anyway but irratatingly the college doesn't seem that well organised. I'm still wating for another date for an interview/test thing after I sent my application in OCTOBER!

I suppose I should admit that the major reason this recession hasn't affected me is that I live like myxo on $20 a week. Most of my supplies and food items are things that people donate to me like the crates of past-date school milk cartons or spray paint are all courtesy of my mom working in a cafeteria and my being backed by a graffiti and hip hop music shop for supplies.

It's not affected me…
It might yet in part of my work; a lot of business comes from big mining companies and business related to mining companies. Orders from some of them has gone down as they've lost demand in China for their ore etc. And as international currency fluctuates it reduces margins and makes things tricky…

But I'm on a holiday from that at the moment, so I don't know. I will next week when I get back to my graphic design job. I'm not looking forward to it. I like being on holiday!

I wouldn't be that devastated if I lost that job. It's unlikely though

It hasn't had a big effect on anyone I know. We've had four weeks of temporary layoffs at our plant - I was included in two - but the official reason given to us was a steel shortage. The union rep said our industry tends to do pretty well in hard times.

Well it's not effecting me because I'm a lazy good for nothing student, it's not effecting anyone I know because I don't know anyone. . . my mum is finding it impossible to find a job and she and my brother would be slowly starving to death if I weren't basically giving them my entire student loan. Does that count?

It hasn't really affected me. I'm fortunate that I work for the federal government here in the U.S. So far, we haven't felt the affects like the private sector, at least not in my area.

I do have a good friend who recently lost his job as a truck driver because of the recession. Some of his employer's customers were the car manufacturers currently in trouble and thus hey had less product to ship so he was let go.

I'm sending my resumes out. Because my gut tells me that the company I work at will be laying off more people.

There isn't really work to do. And clients are pulling out.

But thank my lucky stars, I got an interview awhile ago. The interviewer seemed to like what I had to say and I was totally calm and in a good mood during the interview. I hope they give me a 2nd interview. And thats it. If I get that job, I'd be making almost double what I make now.

kyupol
I'm sending my resumes out. Because my gut tells me that the company I work at will be laying off more people.

There isn't really work to do. And clients are pulling out.

But thank my lucky stars, I got an interview awhile ago. The interviewer seemed to like what I had to say and I was totally calm and in a good mood during the interview. I hope they give me a 2nd interview. And thats it. If I get that job, I'd be making almost double what I make now.

I hope you follow up on that interview. I've been told that doing so will show them that you REALLY want that job…

I've got laid off but luckily I have some money saved up so I can survive for a minute. I was starting a t-shirt company but then the recession took away my investors and now I have to find a day job and just start the t-shirt company on the side with a lot less money which means a lot less marketing which mean it'll take so much longer to start making money on my company. Sigh, thanks Bush and Dick for ruining our country. I blame all this on Bush and his pals. It might sound irrational and it is but since they were the ones on watch and they're the ones that started a bloody, useless, illegal war that is costing us billions so I blame them for everything. Oh and the reason why I'm so bitter is that I was in the military and few of my buddies gave the ultimate sacrifice for nothing. No weapons of mass destruction, no link b/t Saddam and Bin Laden, thus no reason for their deaths. How sad. How sad that a president could be such a dumb ass and ruin our country.

Hippie Van
No…my family is doing very well. My mother works as a chemist for Health Canada

Health Canada is the shit.

robzidious
It hasn't really affected me. I'm fortunate that I work for the federal government here in the U.S.

I work for the civil service here in the UK. My friends used to say “you should work in the private sector, you'd make so much more.”

For some reason, they've stopped saying that now.

yeah, there's only one place you want to be in a recession, much like there is only one place you want to be when the city is on fire…

I like working for universities, things stay pretty stable all around. They brought me all the way from America, they're not going to fire me unless I do something massively stupid. My disposable income margin is a bit smaller, but happily the uni kept its promise to the staff and gave us a 4.5% inflation raise late last year.

skoolmunkee
My disposable income margin is a bit smaller, but happily the uni kept its promise to the staff and gave us a 4.5% inflation raise late last year.

And they send you on PAID working holidays to places in Europe! …ENVY >_<

I haven't been able to get a job since graduation, and now we're unplugging everything. Also, freezing.

Also, my former college's done pay cuts and laid off some people. People who I thought would never go. O_O It's sad. I mean, who am I gonna talk to when I visit now?

Also also, the guy I've been sorta freelance working with got crap from some of his clients, but stuff started materializing for him again. He trusts me to help him, and he pays me a lot, so whatever affects him also affects me, lol.

Until last week, I had not worked since late August 2008. Too much competition for jobs and not enough to go around. I went through all my remaining savings just trying to endure and I was almost out of the house. On top of that, unemployment rejected me and a staffing agency gig I did briefly sat on their asses about paying me. It'll be 3 months in a few days since I did that and have yet to see a dime.

ozoneocean
And they send you on PAID working holidays to places in Europe! …ENVY >_<

Well, probably not any more for a long time, haha. :) Although I think if I get into a conference they'll send me, but that means writing a paper or something, ugh.

Oh, I just remembered that there's a company I do some work for on the side. They're six months behind on paying me (I'm so used to not getting paid by them I just forgot… maybe that's what they want?) I don't think it's because of the recession though, I think it's just because they're a crummy company.

What recession?

There's a very strong possibility that my dad will be out of the job in a few weeks, and then we won't be able to afford private school, so I'll have to switch schools in the middle of year.

Damn, I hope he finds work (he's a contractor).