It's started...

[SpiffyJr]

Just got back from work (I'm a Software Engineer at a major scale company in the US) and 50 people were layed off. My best friend (hardware engineer) got cut and was very well liked and knew his job.... pretty much means they're cutting whoever they have to now.

Of the 50 people that got cut, seven or so were engineers, another dozen were office workers, and the rest were in the factory. Every hourly employee was cut to 35 hours maximum per week. All managers took a cut in pay (even the owners) and they suspended 401k matching.

President-elect Obama wanted to prove his worth and now is sure as fuck the time to do it.

[Stretch]

It started at the beginning of 2008.

It got worse in mid-July.

The shit hit the fan on September 15th, and has been downhill since then.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

Kind of sad you think it "just started" because it hit close to home for you. My company laid off first quarter of last year. Sounds like your company realizes if it doesn't change it's going tits up.

[Numbers]

My company runs a very tight ship, and we've been fortunate enough not to have to do any layoffs due to the economy. We have cut back on a few expenses, though.

It's shitty, but things will rebound eventually.

[Jorddyn]

Our office staff has downsized through attrition (and a couple slacker-firings), but we have had layoffs of production staff in two of our facilities over the course of the last 3 months. The only thing I can say is that I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. Sometimes knowing the numbers sucks.

[Clove]

10 layoffs today in two of our companies :(

[SpiffyJr]

Well, our company has been laying off it just didn't hit me as much because it was mostly factory workers and not the engineering department. I was sad that my friend got hit because it's his second time in two years.

[AnticorRifling]

I got axed in Oct. but it wasn't a layoff. The company had been doing huge swaths of RIFs though.

[Skeeter]

I got offed in August. Looking for a job now is god damn awful. I was lucky to land one in October.

Start my new one on Monday.

I guess rubbing all those bronze asses at the Riviera Casino in Vegas paid off.

[SHAFT]

I feel bad for everyone going through this. My parents dealt with this with GM years ago. There was always a fear regarding their jobs. My uncle is going through it now.

[Sean of the Thread]

You guys are all fucked especially in the IT business.

I did just get a contract to do a website. Count my lucky stars.

[Keller]

My firm was up 6% over last year in Q3. My group specifically was up 10%+ over October, November, and December.

A lot of that was due to time constraints for recognizing losses to carryback against taxes paid in the last couple of years. I hope that we don't grind to a halt after these deals close.

[Deathravin]

I work for an civil engineering firm.

We were ~500 employees in October 2006. We are now down to 171 as of this posting. But it's Friday so you never know.

They cut in trickles. 4 this Friday, 2 next Wednesday, 1 next Thursday. etc. We consolidated into one office (we had 3 offices spread out over the city), and one team had a few people go clean out the new office, pack up, unpack that stuff, then 3 days after the move laid all 3 off.

They've laid off people that have worked here for 30 years. Literally started at 16, and worked their ways up, through school, etc. It's very scary.

[Keller]

I work for an civil engineering firm.

We were ~500 employees in October 2006. We are now down to 171 as of this posting. But it's Friday so you never know.

Fucking ouch.

You'd think, given the "let's build roads!" president coming in, you'd be hiring and not firing.

[Trouble]

Thankfully I work in a recession-resistant field (government contracting), so I think I'm in pretty good shape unless things get a lot worse with the economy.

There are lots of IT jobs here in the DC area for anyone with or willing to get a clearance. Send your unfortunate friends/former co-workers to be assimilated!

Here are 1073 listings of "network engineer" in Washington DC posted within the past 14 days: http://seeker.dice.com/jobsearch/servlet/JobSearch?WHERE=washington%2C+dc&Ntx=mode+matchall&FRMT=0&QUICK=1&ZC_COUNTRY=0&SORTSPEC=0&N=0&Hf=0&Ntk=JobSearchRanking&NUM_PER_PAGE=30&op=300&LOCATION_OPTION=2&TAXTERM=0&RADIUS=64.37376&FREE_TEXT=network+engineer&TRAVEL=0&DAYSBACK=14. Not all need clearances.