If bears predictions of a serious drop in house prices came true I wonder how many of them could take advantage of the situation given we could be in quite a recession? How many BTLr's empires could survive being out of work for a while.

How many of you have jobs that are secure enough to see you through a recession? No good buying a place but get made redundant 6mths later and forced to sell is it? The indecision of buying may well be nothing to the rumours at your work of cutbacks or outsourcing to india.

No-one, unless they work for themselves will be 100% secure in their job.

Most people should be prepared to change careers every 5-6 years.

Education and flexibility is the key.

Geographical flexibility is the main reason why renting long term should be the preferred housing option for a large section of society.

I disagree with much that Andrew Oswald writes re the impending crash but on this point I 100% agree.

Agree about nothing being 100%, however some areas of business and occupations are far more suspectible to down turns than others. IT for instance has been especially hard hit but a recession would typically see the cancellation on many projects leading to layoffs. Also contractors are often let go.

As for geographic flexibility that is an intresting point. I have seen quite a few people having to sell up and move for there job sometimes not when the market was very good. One thing when I moved to into london was the thought at least I can always get a job here without having to sell up.

They used to say that if your job involved food, ie groceries, you'd be all right and the same applies if you're an undertaker because people always have to eat and will always die.

I work in an oil exploration company, so it looks better for me than for many.

However, if HPC led to a massive recession (and it would probably be global) then oil demand would fall and oil prices would halve.

My firm would definitely make layoffs, but I've survived numerous culls before.

Now I'm over 40 I'm feeling less secure though.

Agree - trick is to identify the risk areas and move away.

I moved into outsourcing management last year.

I work in corporate insolvency, so have a vested interest in recessions. Bring on the recession!

That's the spirit!

I personally ended the over-paid career of 15 IT contractors last year. It felt good.

work for a national coach transport firm (traditionally seen as offering cheap national copach travel), last years results were fantastic and we seem to be growing. IMO we will weather the storm because weve been around for years and we offer the cheapest way to travel round the uk.

However as i work in IT, i am aware i could earn slightly more working in an IT firm or working as a consultant...

I work In IT & I kind of miss the old contractors ********.

The conspicuous flicking through of computer weekly going "£75 per hr ? . Not worth my time"

Ahh, where are they now eh ?

Just on this tack , has anyone else who works in IT on this forum noticed that a lot of what was outsourced coding to India/China/ wherever has started to come back to the UK ?
I dont mean all, but apart from basic coding stuff which still gets sent out, I've noticed that a lot of work has come back 'in house' so to speak ...

I could be wrong of course and it may be just a one off..


Going back to the original question.

Personal Job security ? 50/50 over the next 4/5 years, but not hugely bothered . Would get a decent pay-off so in some ways would be quite happy with the old redundancy. Its not as if the firm is going to go bust so as long as I get my dosh...

There is some evidence on this, especially for clients that have bolloxed up an outsourcing project in the past. The cost savings of outsourcing are only a reality for very large projects as much more management is needed to run a project that is done offshore. Some companies are seeing this and are moving things back.

Also Indian software dev salaries have rocketed in the last couple of years, further negating the benefits - hence why China & Vietnam are being considered more and more.

Not sure their families felt the same way.

And why were they 'over-paid' in the first place? Or is that just your take - based on the fact that they just happend to be earning more than you?

It's a sad attitude to life and people that you have there, my friend. Let's just hope that somewhere along the line you don't end up on the receiving end of someone like yourself.

Nomadd

So the previous post by Ah-so calling for a recession was OK in your eyes but my flippant reply deserves this nonsense.

For your information they were over-paid because they were trying to maintain the rates that they'd enjoyed years previously before there was a glut of similarly qualified people. Supply and demand - simple as that.

Next you'll be defending high house prices as people will get hurt if there's a crash.

Did they screw up or was it you how did?

Personally I find the fact that I earn more than everyone else in the department usually makes up for the incompetence of the management around me. For a contractor bench seating comes as part of the role. I find the money I get more than makes up for the few weeks I get to do some enforced gardening, decorating or other long term interest.

Sacking anyone should not make you feel good tho. It sought of sums up the sad, pointless person you really are (but cannot bring yourself to admit).

To which I'll add the same about you company. using contractors to provide day to day support!! Yes you should have got short of them, because you never should have employed them for those roles in the first place.

All my other points stand tho.

Speaking as an overpaid IT contractor, I expect to my contract to be terminated early every so often and rates usually suffer reductions during recessions.

What you would not expect, quite reasonably, is your line-manager to take personal pleasure in conducting this redundancy. This exhibits a serious absence of professional conduct.

Snap

My biggest worry about a recession is that I will be pestered to return to work.
In the last recession it was I who did the pestering.

Retired?



India does not have tens of thousands of IT people waiting aroudn twiddling their fingers for IT jobs to appear. India is currently maxed re IT skills and cannot provide enough staff for the demand. Add to that the fact that Indians appear to not like working in an IT culture then Indian outsourcing is becoming a joke.

Also, several companies have admitted in recent weeks that outsourcing has actually cost MORE.

Oh dear, those boys turning down £75 per hour are back!

No, it speaks of a serious lack of social skills, graces and just about everything else. I think I've found the most socially inept person I've ever met online (and over the past 10 years I've met more than my fair share).

This was always going to happen. I've worked on enough IT projects and they're hard to manage when everyone working on them is in the same country. For now work is going offshore due to cost drives but it will probably come back when quality becomes more important again.

I read in Metro last week about a small company (120 employees) coming to the UK from India because they were finding it difficult to operate in India because staff kept leaving to go and work for the 'bigger' firms. I guess this is to do with high wage inflation, constantly undoing the advantage of offshoring work. The company was setting up in Middlesborough where they believed staff would stay with the firm longer.

Eek - The decision to outsource was one of cost only. Short term costs rose and throughput fell. After 6 months we started to deliver better quality, quicker and at less cost. It's not support - that ironically, is still based in UK (not for long tho').

We maintain a small core of permanent IT to handhold the very business critical developments where business demands a face-to-face presence. Everything else goes offshore.

The big win is having a large potential pool of good quality people who have gained experience across a wide range of blue chip companies. Previously we kept hiring the same people as they "knew our business" - and therefore paid for the priviledge.

Double snap!!

The only problem with corporate insolvency is that the new regime seems to be having the effect that less companies are going over the edge into receivership. Also the banks are keeping tighter control over what the companies are doing. I am not sure that we will see as many corporate busts as there were in the last recession. The good thing is that the work appears more long term consistent rather than a short period of horrendus busts followed by nothingness...

Similarly, in the housing market, the types of products available in the market mean that people can survive for much longer without having to pay the bank anything to stay in their houses. Hence, there may be less repos this time.

I may be wrong and, indeed, hope that I am wrong but that certainly seems to be the feeling at the moment.

And there's more of that immature attitude of yours - the very thing I was commenting on. And no, I wasn't commenting on someone else's posts - just yours. Of course, your reply was just to call that 'nonsense'. How clever.

As I say, I hope you meet someone with your attitude in life: you'll deserve it.

Maybe the next time you are looking for an 'overpaid' Doctor, Nurse, Police Officer, Fireman, etc., etc. you'll remember your glee. Remember, all of those jobs are paid cheaper rates in other parts in the world - and they all rely on I.T. systems to function.

Me? I've spent the last 4-5 years rearchitecting and rebuilding projects which have been outsourcing disasters. Remember, you pay peanuts, you get...

I think I'll be OK for a few more years yet - unless you come and make me redundant. Oh, but wait, I own the company, so that's impossible. Poor you.

Nomadd

I've got three clients went to overseas cheaper solutions last year. All three came back, they always do. You have to target yourself at your target client...

My clients expect systems that do exactly what they want them to do. They ask, I deliver. It's as simple as that. Accordingly I charge them a lot. But in the long run they always save in time far more than what I charge.

Several overseas solutions they have bought into have created more work than what they were already doing. Clients want face time.

As a prime example, I'm sitting in Beijing as I write this, a client having paid me to fly out and support the solution on site for a couple of weeks even though I've told them I can do it all remotely and save them a lot of cost.

As regards to Job safety in the face of a recession..there is none. Even the self employed rely on clients to pay them..in turn those clients are affected by a recession just like anyone else.

Do I think I'm safe. No not at all. My clients are almost exclusively finance related so will cut back more than most. I'm working like the clappers at the moment to protect myself against quiet periods. Getting as many projects signed off as possible and bound into contracts. I have taken lower prices on projects in order to get guarantees as well. After doing all this I still make sure I have enough put away to ride out at least 12 months of no work. This gives me peace of mind that even in a worse case scenario I have a plan.

if the market crashs (which i dont think is going to happen) at least prices would at a level which joe average could buy, so surprisingly I think my job is safe.

Nomadd - IT systems are no different to any manufacturing process.

Decent spec, quality workman and "bobs your uncle".

Time to demystify - IT had a good run and those that earnt the money at the time deserved it. But why should I pay over the going rate - I don't for anything else.

I had always thought hairdressing & beauty was a good profession to be in during a slowdown - people always need haircuts right!? However, I understand market growth slowed as a result of economic recession during the early 1990s. Many consumers reduced the frequency of visits to a hairdressing salon, as well as forgoing expensive, non-essential treatments. Some consumers opted for 'do it yourself' hair styling products as a means of reducing expenditure.

Yes one of the most easily reduced expenses. Along with eating out, theatres, expensive holidays etc. So long as interest rates don't rise quickly sensible people will always find a way to economise to pay the mortgage (or rent).

Could be !

Then again , our company hasnt hired any contractors in any number for about 4 years but there be whispers ..

As you say MT , the return of £75 ph boys could be nigh !! (cue "£100 per hr ? . Not worth my time" - bulls h i t plus inflation. )

Only joking contractors - welcome back.

Is that right Ignorant Steve, you hired contractors for support work !!??


(Sorry - just seen your reply to eek above . Ignore )

Looks like the perfect career move. Outsourcing as far as I can tell is gathering pace.
On Radio 5 (Victoria Derbyshire - Leftie heaven) this morning, the show asked 'How can Governemnt help creat more flexible working'. Also the minimum wage just went up.

It appears as if the Unions and leftish think tanks and family freindly organisations are ignoring outsourcing or is it my imagination?

Interesting peice on Radio 4 this morning - Chief Executive of HSBC was being questioned as to customer breakdown.

US 25%, UK 25%, Hong Kong/China 25%; with China expected to grow hugely over the next 5 years.

Then talked about profitability as wages costs had been queried. UK made significantly less profit because of salary and pension costs. No prizes for guessing where HSBC will be reducing employment then!

Good news of course is that they paid a huge wedge of Coporation Tax to fund the future extra dole payments.

An old buzzard I know started his E/A in the early 70s. It was Opec crisis, 3 day weeks, strikes, power cuts unemployment etc. He said he made his best money during slumps. He said some E/As went bust as they never had 'margin' (emergency savings).

Bears should keep perspective. Blighty when through momentus recessions and wars last century yet UK plc survived financialy in the long run.

We are a very inventive lot in UK, and tend to think outside the box far more than any other nationality so we will always have a niche in the world which will keep us top of economic tables. What other nation would have produced Fawlty Towers or Black Adder? We are a nation of 'hobby lovers' which leads to creative thinking and enterprise.
There is a hobby group for just about anything in this country.

Our financial systems are far more trustworthy and robust. Japanese Banks went pop in droves due to lack of transparency. UK 'fair play attitude' will always be a big factor in international finance / insurance etc.

Except for Doctors, Nurses, Dentists, and Lawyers no job is bullet proof. What are employment contracts these days on average? One year. ( Keeps the redundancy payments to a minimum )
Always surprises me how people take on so much debt, when jobs can be gone in a puff. The workforce today are trodden on and meekly accept it. For those who think they are indispensible, believe me you also can end up unemployed, many people I know found that out to their cost.

DB..... UK Plc was bankrupt at the end of WWII, it then lurched into a full blown financial crises in the 1970's, the £ lost it's reserve currency status long ago, our manufacturing base has all but gone, and our once admired educational system has been rapidly loosing credibility due to rampant grade and qualification inflation.

The 20c has been a period of steady economic decline for the UK which is set to continue and accelerate I'm afraid to say. I'm sorry to say that no, the UK will not maintain it's place at the high table of world economies for much longer.

I may be wrong but it seems to me that a large majority of posters on here work in IT. Funny an all what with this bein an internet forum.

I'm an Optometrist for my sins. Hopefully people will always need glasses.

Charlie the Tramp - I'd question your assumption that lawyers are in a bullet proof job.

I know several who have been made redundant.

Lets say in general.

I work in mental health. Given that people are more depressed than they were 25 years ago, I should be fine! A crash/recession merely adds to the back-log of cases to treat. Plus all that MDMA has shot the 30-somethings 5-HT receptors to sh1t. Great news! (All in a kind of ironic way, of course...)

Every profession will suffer a bit. People will go for the cheap coffin when granny dies and baked beans for tea. I know a barrister and she reckons civil law hasn't been doing too well of late, maybe it's picking up, who knows, but you certainly HAVE to sue anyone. Medicine is still very much at the mercy of the current administration; New Labour haven't had a recession yet to tinker with, I suspect the pay rises would certainly stop then...

In the long-run is a recession bad? No, of course not. It's a chance to stop and re-think, cut waste, necessity as mother of invention etc etc.

I think during the last recession some guy set up a company putting up shutters for vacant properties and shops and made his fortune that way, there's always a turn to be made out of any situation.

However, history teaches us that after a recession jobs tend to shift from higher-paying to lower-paying industries. So your kids and grand-kids better learn how to clean hotel rooms, wash dishes and sweep floors...Personally, I think we can do better than becoming a nation providing day care, putting chocolates on pillows, and asking "Would you care for dessert?"

Intresting replies on this thread. I do wonder if there will be analysis=paralysis for bears wanting to buy in a recession but fearful if their job is going to be there 6mths down the line. Currently all these confident statements about buying when prices drop dramatically are being a made with us all in a relatively good employment environment. For some of them buying in recession will be quite risky. For those in IT it is bad enough at present let alone in a recession I would think. Worse is for some their deposit could be eaten up by being unemployed for a while (average 9mths in last big recession I believe).

Bingo, and it's alot harder to get a mortgage too, it was back in the 1990-91 crash, prices fell but no one even wanted to buy even if they could getting a mortgage was much harder to do, and your right people were loosing there jobs.

Only way to buy will be to have a good earnings track record a steady job/ occupation and a chunky deposit. Completely the opposite of today.

Rich M

>Plus all that MDMA has shot the 30-somethings 5-HT receptors to sh1t. Great news! (All in a kind of ironic way, of course...)

I'm interested in this subject. Has there been a large number of people who took Ecstasy in the early 90's getting mental health problems as a result? If so, what sort? Just depression?

Timmy I agree with much of what you say and I'm forever winging about the dumbing down of education and spread of employment regulation.

However, I am surprised that UK went from a lowly economic position in the late seventies to 4 th biggest economy today.
I am amazed at this result in view of all the manufacturing lost to Japan / Korea / China.

I ask myself therefore, how has this outcome been achieved?

The answer I come up with is that this must be down to our natural inventiveness and innate ability to 'chase the money'. It has crept up on us without US style fanfare or evanjelical business preaching. Its a bit like the way we conducted wars and empire in the last 300 years. We employed stealth and sneakey inventiveness to achieve our goals unlike other empires which employed overt and blunt force as thier ONLY method whereas the Brits used other peoples greed etc in a very cunning way.

I think UK global business is the same. It finds the route of best way to profits regardless of the impact on UK workers. It appears to be providing much inward capital wealth as a result - which I used to say was not possible.

Another way to illustrate the Brits unerring ability to chase the money is this;
I have always been amazed at our acceptance of foreign football players and a foriegn national team manager. Other nations / major teams did not previously consider such 'traitorism'. The Brits did such things because ONLY THE RESULT COUNTS. I recall Italians criticising such moves and thier teams insisting on home grown talent in the main. Later everyone has followed our model.

This kind of ruthlessness and inventivness will probably assure our economic well being.

I vaguely knew about this, used pubmed to put some meat on the bones.

This is just a case report:

Psychol Rep. 2004 Aug;95(1):192-6.
Persistent neuropsychological problems after 7 years of abstinence from recreational Ecstasy (MDMA): a case study.
Soar K, Parrott AC, Fox HC.

Department of Psychology, School of Psychology, University of East London, UK. k.soar@uel.ac.uk

This case study concerns a 26-yr.-old male who had consumed large amounts of Ecstasy seven years previously. He stated that his increasingly intensive use of ecstasy over a 4-yr. period had led to the emergence of multiple psychiatric and psychological problems. Given these problems, he stopped using Ecstasy, but the problems had not resolved despite seven years of abstinence. The neurocognitive profile was very similar to that shown by current heavy Ecstasy users, with deficits in immediate and delayed verbal recall, moderately impaired memory function, but normal expressive language ability and perceptual functioning. Extremely high pathology was evident, including depression and phobic anxiety. Severe problems with sleep and sex were also reported. Further studies involving larger groups of abstinent former users are needed; adverse sequelae associated with intensive Ecstasy use may sometimes be enduring.


A more substantive study:

Drug Alcohol Depend. 2004 Aug 16;75(2):135-47.
Residual neuropsychological effects of illicit 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in individuals with minimal exposure to other drugs.
Halpern JH, Pope HG Jr, Sherwood AR, Barry S, Hudson JI, Yurgelun-Todd D.
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Center, Harvard Medical School, Biological Psychiatry Laboratory, McLean Hospital, 115 Mill Street, Belmont, MA 02478-9106, USA. john_halpern@hms.harvard.edu

BACKGROUND: A substantial literature suggests that users of illicit 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or "ecstasy") display residual cognitive deficits. Most MDMA users, however, use other illicit drugs as well, so it is difficult to be certain that these deficits are due to MDMA, as opposed to other drug use or additional confounding factors. METHODS: We administered a battery of neuropsychological tests to 23 young MDMA users who reported minimal exposure to any other drugs, including alcohol, and to 16 comparison individuals equally involved with the rave subculture, but reporting no MDMA use. We compared the groups by regression analyses adjusting for numerous potentially confounding variables. To test for a possible dose-response effect, we also performed a median split of 12 moderate MDMA users (22-50 lifetime uses) and 11 heavy users (60-450 uses), and compared these subgroups with non-users. RESULTS: MDMA users as a whole performed worse than non-users on most test measures, but these comparisons rarely reached statistical significance. This picture changed markedly in the subgroup analysis: although moderate users displayed virtually no differences from non-users on any measures, the heavy users displayed significant deficits on many measures, particularly those associated with mental processing speed and impulsivity. These differences did not appear explainable by differences in family-of-origin variables, verbal IQ, levels of depression, or time since last MDMA use. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of residual cognitive deficits, even among unusually "pure" frequent users of illicit MDMA, analyzed with adjustment for confounding variables, augments the evidence that MDMA itself, rather than some associated factor, is responsible for the deficits observed.



A great journal:

Psychol Med. 2004 Feb;34(2):229-46.
Neurocognitive function in users of MDMA: the importance of clinically significant patterns of use.
Hanson KL, Luciana M.
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.

BACKGROUND: Use of MDMA (ecstasy), a serotonin neurotoxin, has been associated with memory impairment and psychological dysfunction. This study examined cognitive functioning in abstinent MDMA users and MDMA-naive controls. METHOD: Participants completed measures of intelligence, motor function, attention, memory span, verbal fluency, immediate and delayed verbal memory, and working memory. They were also assessed for the presence of psychopathology. In addition to comparing cognitive function in MDMA users relative to controls, the possibility that clinically dysfunctional MDMA use increases the risk of cognitive impairment was examined. RESULTS: MDMA users exhibited relative deficits in mnemonic and executive functions. Additionally, users that met DSM-IV substance use disorder criteria for lifetime MDMA abuse or dependence exhibited a number of additional deficits relative to those who did not meet these criteria. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that clinically dysfunctional, rather than purely recreational, MDMA use is associated with cognitive impairment. Future research studies of diverse samples of users may shed light on the mechanisms that underlie these differences.

My spider sense tells me, 2 Es ok, 100 Es bad... I'm not a clinician (yet) but would be happy to give pointers on a PM; the rest will go mad if I post anymore abstracts...

One more thing, the critics would argue that people who used MDMA a lot might have been more vulnerable to cognitive deficits (i.e. stupidity) and mood disorders (i.e. depression) anyway, and the drug itself didn't cause the problems. More research might be needed. Dear god stay away from speed/cocaine, they use that in rats as a model of schizophrenia...

You're right there dogbox. But you still need to ensure that your portfolio is more secure. The smart, inventive money you applaud has already left the building, IMO...

But I.T. isn't a manufacturing process. You don't just roll the same product off the same line, day in, day out. Yes, a monkey *could* do *that*.

I've been in IT 25 years, and I've never been busier. My job is to design and architect solutions for large enterprise clients; that isn't chimp work, and it takes a huge amount of experience to even know where to start. As I said in my prior post, most clients I've worked for in the last few years have pulled most of their IT back to the UK. Of those that haven't *none* - and that includes my current client who have their own IT Dept employing 100s in India - have moved their design and architecture functions to India.

I.T. isn't at the end of a 'good run'. I've earnt more in the last 5 years than ever before, and that's after 16-17 years of IT freelancing. Sure, lots of basic support work and basic coding has moved (much of it to partially come back), but I.T. is still a strong, very well-paid industry to be in.

The great thing is, of course , is that young people no longer see it that way. They think like you: it's all gone to India. Oh, and 'it's all gone in the dot-com bubble'. That's great for me, as no new blood is coming into the game - trying reading any of the reports over the last few months from the CBI (etc., etc.) that warn that we are now heading to the old days of skills shortages and high rates. I don't know of *any* decent contractors who are out of work now, and that situation is set to continue.

Still, if you feel different, that's fine. Me, I'll just keep taking the cash: £750/day at the moment, thanks very much. That's more than enough beer tokens for me.

Nomadd