I see a pattern of dark and light areas that forms the face of Jesus.
At my daughter’s large clinic office, she works in the scanning (paperwork) department, but they’ve started training her to do some of the work of a medical assistant. They’ve laid off nurses and taken other paper pushers and trained them to work the phones and as nurse’s assistants. They let people go and don’t replace them but everyone in support is so overworked. I think they’ve cut 80% of the nursing staff and replaced them with office workers. There were no raises this year for anyone despite being asked to work twice as much.
She’d love to leave but I wonder if it’s the same elsewhere.
Things are looking up for the oil and gas industry, or at least my corner of it. I’ve had a lot of friends laid off in the last year my rugby team was just over 30% by our fall season last year. With only the local coal mine keeping the majority employed. Through the winter the basin shut down nearly completely, only 3 rigs running from a high of over 30 the summer before, so most people were shifted around or laid off. I’m currently working in west Texas and haven’t been home in nearly 6 months but it beat the alternative.
Talking to service companies they are starting to hire back a lot of the people recently laid off and most of my friends have found jobs but even though prices are looking good companies are holding off ramping back to full capacity because they are expecting prices to drop once this winter fully ends. Of course there have been lots of acquisitions this winter and that makes people nervous but luckily my company if a very unlikely candidate for that.
On the tourism side talking to my friends who were able to stay in the area things look pretty good the big winter brought a lot of people out to the slopes and a couple of new business were able to start up. It looks like the people who can are taking advantage of all of the deals right now and are close to maintaining the same volume of people.
Overall things are looking up although a friend just sold his house after having to move to keep his job and lost a little over 13% of its value in the 6 months he owned it so not all parts are recovering equally.
I don’t really see much of the recession here. A few closed stores and talk of budget cuts in various places but otherwise it hasn’t really touched my life. I had a review at work yesterday and got a raise and a bonus and they announced yesterday that we are hiring 6 more people to work in our office starting 7/1. Being aware that the economy could tank again at any moment though the SO and I put together an emergency budget in case something happens and figured that we could live on 50% of our current income if we absolutely had to, but other than that sort of preparing-for-disaster kind of planning we haven’t really been impacted by the recession at all.
There wasn’t any vitriol on my statement. Simply that the US Federal Gov’t pumped a lot of money into the financial sector to stabilize it. As a result, some (not all) of the business kept going and employment for those fortunate ones kept apace. If there is a second wave, I just don’t see the same reaction from the gov’t likely. Therefore, folks in that sector will be hit. I’m not blaming you guys (in this discussion at least) just pointing out a possible outcome.
Icarus - your statement I agree with. I was referring mostly to mhendo’s sarcasm.
I think the financial sector (and the overall economy) is on government life support. If there is a second wave, it will be because sovereign governments are in trouble, and there is no one to bail out Spain, the UK, or the USA.
Sorry for the confusion, carry on. 
Well, I live in California, where teachers’ jobs are not secure. State & local employees are in a world of hurt, with mandatory furloughs & such, and there were many people whose jobs were related to home construction & remodeling who are looking for jobs that will never return (at least in the same numbers). I live near several churches, and the people lining up for food (during the day, when others are at work) have gotten noticeably longer in the past few years (actually predating 2008).
I have a seemingly stable job with a relatively good salary, but because my 401K took a dump, I’m assuming I’ll work at least five years longer, possibly ten, which means I’m going to be crowding out two or three younger people from getting jobs. (Subject to whether or not I can actually maintain that performance).
In Southern California, we were economically polarized before this big mess, and now it’s even worse. We’ve got people with degrees, people with decades of experience and people with both lining up for job openings at theme parks for part time jobs at $8 an hour. And now our teachers are losing their jobs, nearly every city in the state is shedding workers because of lower income tax receipts, and next on the chopping block will be police and firemen.
I don’t think we’ve even begun to see the worst of it. We need an economy that functions across the whole spectrum. It needs to work for landscapers, barristas, teachers, data entry clerks, graphic artists, IT people, popes – the whole shebang. And of course, engineers should have the highest incomes of all, and should be treated as royalty; they make useful things that didn’t exist before they made them.