Economic crisis just an excuse...

[Fatt Max]

Rocked over to see a mate of mine last night, he was a bit down after getting laid off from his job.

So, armed with a box of happy fizz and some of the Corromandels best, we sat down and chewed it over.

My mate made a very interesting observation. His company (an engineering firm, Aussie owned) have just picked up a huge contract worth a few million over 5 years. Now, all of a sudden, the firm is in trouble, wages are being cut, overtime gone and the last 5 guys in were outed.

His question was "Why the f**k has this happened?"

Good point because right now the firm is busier than ever.

His angle is that companies out there are using this economic climate as an excuse to cut the arse out of their costs and get more out of the people left. Yes, appreciate that times are hard but are these big compaines taking advantage of the situation to crunch the workforce?

And, are they using this as an excuse to get rid of workers that they dont want?

Tad scary thought, eh...

Wondered what you guys thought about that one....

[riffer]

Yeah, saw it all before in 1991-92.

And guess what happened? The economy picked up, and businesses were slow to recognise this, and starting in about 1995 the great New Zealand Brain drain started to occur.

Face it, the majoriy of New Zealdand employers wouldn't know their arse from the elbow when it comes to proper long-term management of their company.

argh. I've woken up possessed by the spirit of Finn.

[ManDownUnder]

Yeah, saw it all before in 1991-92.

And guess what happened? The economy picked up, and businesses were slow to recognise this, and starting in about 1995 the great New Zealand Brain started to occur.

Face it, the majority of New Zealand employers wouldn't know their arse from the elbow when it comes to proper long-term management of their company.

What he said... and right now there's still opportunity for good people.

Get his CV together, shit in order and hit the road looking for jobs.

argh. I've woken up possessed by the spirit of Finn.

Put it back - I know where it's been...

[rainman]

companies out there are using this economic climate as an excuse to cut the arse out of their costs and get more out of the people left. Yes, appreciate that times are hard but are these big compaines taking advantage of the situation to crunch the workforce?

Nothing new there then.

Face it, the majoriy of New Zealdand employers wouldn't know their arse from the elbow when it comes to proper long-term management of their company.

Abso-effing-lutely. And you could leave out the word "long-term" and still be right.

[Murray]

Face it, the majoriy of New Zealdand employers wouldn't know their arse from the elbow when it comes to proper long-term management of their company.

Big problem being that so many NZ business now has foreign ownership and they are so fixated in growth. Just making a profit is not good enough for them, they must grow the profit every year and employers here are forced to scarifice long term goals for short term fixes!!

[Mom]

There is also the continuing blame of the economic crisis for failing businesses. I hear it all the time, oh we were doing ok till the economic crisis happened, turnover is right down yadda, yadda. Here is one for Finn though, talking to a woman last week, we came up with half a dozen instances in the last 3 months where businesses had failed to capatilize on an opportunity.

One as an example. A guy wants to buy 2 heat pump DVS systems for his home and a rental that he also owns. Goes into local shop and talks to the salesman there. Yes sir we can do that for you, I will come out next week and do a measure up and get a quote sorted. This is 6 weeks ago, and no sign of said salesman at all. Now how hard can times really be if you can turn down a sitting opportunity like that. I have money on the fact that shop will be cutting back staff really soon as business is not doing so well.

[Skyryder]

Rocked over to see a mate of mine last night, he was a bit down after getting laid off from his job.

So, armed with a box of happy fizz and some of the Corromandels best, we sat down and chewed it over.

My mate made a very interesting observation. His company (an engineering firm, Aussie owned) have just picked up a huge contract worth a few million over 5 years. Now, all of a sudden, the firm is in trouble, wages are being cut, overtime gone and the last 5 guys in were outed.

His question was "Why the f**k has this happened?"

Good point because right now the firm is busier than ever.

His angle is that companies out there are using this economic climate as an excuse to cut the arse out of their costs and get more out of the people left. Yes, appreciate that times are hard but are these big compaines taking advantage of the situation to crunch the workforce?

And, are they using this as an excuse to get rid of workers that they dont want?

Tad scary thought, eh...

Wondered what you guys thought about that one....

With a post like this you will get my kinda reputation. Yea but sounds like they want to get rid of all the sour milk and keep the cream and guess who gets the sugar. Not the guys down on the floor.

Skyryder

[Skyryder]

Yeah, saw it all before in 1991-92.

And guess what happened? The economy picked up, and businesses were slow to recognise this, and starting in about 1995 the great New Zealand Brain started to occur.

This is partly true. They could not pick up becasue they had dumped their emplee base and could not recruit to the level that was needed.

The Job summit was a means to avoid this. Key waxed on about the need to save jobs and everybody thinks that his concern was for the employees. It was not, it is was about protecting the job base for the employers. So that when the economy picks up the job base is still intact. Now if Key had stated this I might have some respect for the man but he has not. He's waffled on about his concerns for those of his roots.........that's the working class........Key has no more concern for them than Rodger Douglas or Hide.


Skyryder

[Brian d marge]

I finally got around to putting all my notes into one ..ducument trouble is its 27 pages long , I want to put it up here as a sort off this is why and how NZ landed in the sh&'( .... I dont know if i can reduce its size any ...how would I go about posting such a doc/pdf of such a size ??

Stephen

ps I m not sure you could call a bubble good times , ( sub prime and the current correction) ,,, I mean thats like saying ,,,I borrowed some money ...so I am better off ,,,???

[Ocean1]

How many of your acquaintances would you, personally hire if you, personally were relying on them to generate more income for you than they cost?

97% of them?, (supposed peak employment figure).

80%?

50%?

The economy is shrinking to the tune of 5 to 7%, (depending on who's % you're quoting). Business owners are asking themselves that question more frequently lately, and the answer ain't that attractive for anyone.

I finally got around to putting all my notes into one ..ducument trouble is its 27 pages long

You're allowed to post a *.doc up to 2MB dude, that's a lot of words...

this is why and how NZ landed in the sh&'

It’s ‘cause there’s way too many reasons not to succeed, dude.

“Most people don't recognize opportunity when it comes, because it's usually dressed in overalls and looks a lot like work.” Thomas A Edison.

[warewolf]

how would I go about posting such a doc/pdf of such a size ??

Upload it to any external file hosting site, link to it here.

[twotyred]

In these early stages of the depress...er... recession,there are more instances of businesses using the financial meltdown as an excuse to cut staff to maintain profits reather than actual business failures... this will change

[Winston001]

How many of your acquaintances would you, personally hire if you, personally were relying on them to generate more income for you than they cost?

97% of them?, (supposed peak employment figure).

80%?

50%?

The economy is shrinking to the tune of 5 to 7%, (depending on who's % you're quoting). Business owners are asking themselves that question more frequently lately, and the answer ain't that attractive for anyone.


“Most people don't recognize opportunity when it comes, because it's usually dressed in overalls and looks a lot like work.” Thomas A Edison.

In these early stages of the depress...er... recession,there are more instances of businesses using the financial meltdown as an excuse to cut staff to maintain profits reather than actual business failures... this will change

Well said. When businesses were busy those staff who were a bit slack, rubbed others up the wrong way etc, they were kept on. Now things have slackened off, the boss starts to worry about bank loans etc and where he will be 12 months down the track. So.....layoffs happen.

I've no doubt there are some places using the recession as an excuse to get rid of people. I don't like the thought of that either - but as we've argued many times before, its damned hard/impossible to sack staff under NZ employment law. So the recession has become another way to achieve it.

BUT - make no mistake, there is a serious recession on. Even here in Southland which showed no signs up til Christmas, activity has stopped. For the first time in 7 years, I've used the word "bankruptcy" talking to clients - twice in the last week. Its kinda a shock to go from helping people, to looking bewildered people in the eye and trying to save their homes. Both cases are businesses.

[trumpy]

BUT - make no mistake, there is a serious recession on.

Indeed there is. There are however, a number of people in the employment market who have yet to figure this out.
My company is by no means recession proof but there are always opportunities around if you are prepared to look. As a consequence we are one of the few companies in this town that's trying to increase its staff numbers. I say trying because this is what it has been.
We advertised for a couple of workshop jobs (with full training provided by us) and since there have been a lot of redundancies in this region lately we thought filling these would be no problem.
Sure enough, got plenty of replies but interviews were a different matter. It soon became readily obvious that a good number of the applicants had been spending a little too much time swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool (should have expected that I suppose) but most of the others didn't have much of a clue either.........it's a workshop job man, at least put on a pair of shoes! (some clean clothes and a shower might help too).
Then we got applicants telling us how much we were going to pay them...........now let's see if I have this right; you have no experience in this industry, no skills and no job?......and we are going to pay you what?......here mate have a Tui.

There's a flip side to every coin.

[Ride it till the red]

Trumpy, are you still looking? What kind of workshop job are we talking? Taupo would be a nice change of scenery and it sounds like it might be a good opportunity to get into a good career. And without being too confident, given your report on other applicants I might be at least one step ahead of the bunch.

Although I'm happy to say that at this stage my job looks pretty damn safe!