I know the Post Office is looking to reduce the number of days it delivers mail from 6 days to 5, likely eliminating Tuesday delivery.

From a fuel conservation perspective, I actually think it is a good idea. 

From my own perspective here in NY, the law firm I work for is letting about a couple of hundred people go.  We also did not get a merit increase for 2009 and bonuses are now contingent on reaching a billable hour goal that cannot be achieved simply by working 7 hours a day, five days a week.  As someone who has family obligations outside of work, that is going to be very hard to do, and if it looks like I might not make it, I am tempted to just resign and be a stay at home dad for a while.  Screw the rat race.

this isn’t exactly local, but i’m a graduate of the class of 2008 from an ivy league class, and many of my fellow graduating class are still unemployed with no immediate prospects. i’m not asking for pity or even sympathy - far from it - but i think it’s telling that if ivy league graduates can’t find jobs, i can only imagine what that means for those not privileged enough to be part of the upper crust of the socio-econo-academic elite.

Intel just announced they’re closing one of their Hillsboro campuses. That can’t be good.

Why would or should the post office eliminate Tuesday delivery? Wouldn’t Saturday be a more logical option?

I don’t know how freaked out to be about economic news like this. I’m in Canada, which is certainly struggling, and which will certainly see its economy be highly affected by what’s happening down south, but we don’t seem to be hit as hard as you. OTOH, we have our own doomsayers.

Are there any good sources out there that compare the 80s recession with this one? I can’t remember much depression talk during that one, nor did we see the car industry and the newspapers in anywhere near as dire straits as they are now.

Down here in Albuquerque, things are not so great. In addition to the folded national chains, we have lost Intel jobs and seen quite a few local businesses either cut positions or go under. Private aircraft manufacturer Eclipse was a big one. Oh, and the city government has a hiring freeze.

At least the movie business has set up shop down here. That’s a recession-resistant industry if there ever was one. And hey, maybe Scarlett Johansson will rescue me from poverty by making me her trophy husband.

(Zooey Deschanel is also acceptable)

Master Mahan, I hate to tell you this, but Scarlet outsourced to Canada to get her husband. Sorry, it was one of those tiny clauses in NAFTA.

I live in Toledo, OH, about a mile from the OH/MI line.

A mile to the west of my house is the GM Powertrain plant.  A mile to the east of my house is the Toledo Jeep North Assembly plant.

I don’t really need to say any more than that about the local economy, do I?  It’s bad.  Really bad. 

I am grateful to have my three part-time jobs (none based here, one based in London, praise Berners-Lee for the WWW).  And my husband has finally stopped bitching about regretting having dropped out of business school, stopped bitching about all the money we could have had if he had only taken that internship with Kidder, Peabody (even though it wouldn’t have paid him enough to eat, let alone continue school) and gone into finance.  He is beyond grateful to be a retail district manager, in a company that is not only debt free and privately held, but actually profitable.  It doesn’t pay a king’s ransom, but it keeps the lights on.

Western Massachusetts.  There are absolutely no jobs to be had.  I luckily snagged one last month, though it’s about 10 hours a week and the pay isn’t so good (thank goodness for our high state minimum wage), but that’s ok cause I’m a very busy grad student with loans to tide me over.  My partner just finished undergrad in December, and can’t find any work at all.  Really, at all.  He’s applied to lots of stuff, but hasn’t had any kind of luck, not even dishwashing or cashier or anything.  There are five well known academic institutions within a few miles of here, and they aren’t hiring.  Which is super bad, cause that’s kind of a good way to get a good job during normal times.  The state university, the small college with the (formerly) billion dollar endowment—nope and nope.  And the state as a whole saw a percentage point increase in unemployment last month, but we’re still better than average on that front. 

On the other hand, I think most people are doing ok.  There’s a pretty good social safety net around here.  State subsidized health insurance, well supported food banks, things like that.  The cost of living isn’t that high around here.  And thank goodness the cost of oil went down, cause it’s been a long cold winter around here.  Last year, when the cost was higher, it was tough for a lot of people.

South Mississippi:  Gaming is a “recession-proof” industry, but there’s been a few layoffs at the casinos and some have cut hours.  The other two big employers are actually hiring.  AT&T;may close one of their call centers to cut costs, but this one likely be it since it’s one of the better performing and more cost-efficient to operate.  Northrop Grumman’s new hires will be lucky since they’ll all be apprentices.  They’re lay-off resistant.  NG can’t, under the apprenticeship program, lay them off.  They’ll get an education at the local trade school/community college and keep their job for the duration of the program.  If you work at Walmart, you’re sitting well, but bored off your ass unless you’re in one of the departments that stay busy regardless of grocery or GM traffic.  Some of the hospitals have let people go.  Two school districts severed a few teachers, who shouldn’t stay out of work long.  It’s still a critical needs state for educators and nurses.

Here in the heart of Red Central California, the unemployment rate has gone to 14.3%, which will make the farmers hearts jump with joy as that means they’ll have plenty of cheap labor to choose from.  6th highest county in the state for enemployment, and it’s been routinely high until the recent housing boom of the last few years, which has gone bust here as elsewhere.

Some of the dairy farmers are hurting because of the oversupply in that area, many folks expanded their herds, and now the price of milk has gone down, and herds aren’t that easy reduce in size.

The local eateries are suffering, a local Denny-like chain has closed their outpost here.

My own job as a tax preparer hasn’t suffered, and I’ve noticed that people really want their refunds this year, they show up to their appointments early which I attribute to anxieties about money, YMMV.

You lot are going to hate me, but we just signed a contract for three years that gives us reasonable rises for the next couple of years, I’m in a government job, and we’re getting funded for a building expansion - it is highly unlikely that the government will be reducing numbers, particularly with the new responsibilities we keep taking on.

Why would or should the post office eliminate Tuesday delivery? Wouldn’t Saturday be a more logical option?

Mary, they would cut the day that generally has the least amount of mail to deliver.  Tuesday or Saturday are the days with the lowest volume.  However, I have read that they are leaning towards Tuesday.

State of Minnesota generally - bad. Cuts everywhere. Huge budget deficit which our smiling assassin of a governor refuses to deal with by raising taxes, thus slashing the budget for higher education and health care to the bone.

Personally - not so bad. I work for an Apple reseller, and while we’re definitely down, this recession for us doesn’t look to be as bad as the 2001-02 end of the tech bubble, which was brutal (we avoided layoffs but took a 10% cut in pay; it was four years before I got the pay cut back). My wife’s a high school teacher with a secure job, but she might end up with a small pay cut or (more likely) paying a lot more for health insurance. So we’ll probably have to tighten our belts a bit but we’ll make it through.

I started a new job less than a year ago.  As time has gone by, the number of beggars at a specific intersection has been steadily increasing.  At first, there was no one there.  Now there are 3 regulars and sometimes I see a fourth guy.  It’s sad to see this continuously increasing, and when no one is begging there anymore, I will take that as a sign of an improving economy.  That is, if I still work at this job and am there to see it.

We’ve been pretty secure here in ND so far, but the ripple effect is starting hit.  One manufacturer (can’t remember if it’s the farm machinery one or the wind turbine one) has laid off 50 people; the other has extended their yearly lay-offs for a month.  I work in a real estate appraisal office, and we’ve received about 30% to 40% fewer appraisal requests, as banks have scaled back their lending.

I don’t expect our relative economic good fortune to last long, though. 

The homeless shelters are stretched to the breaking point, as are the food pantries.  Which is bad, bad news when it’s been as cold as it was last week up here.

They say the economy in Lubbock is pretty good—we’ve supposedly weathered recessions pretty well in the past. Not sure if this is true or just the economic development folks gaming the numbers.

What I see in the want ads is a small number of decent-paying jobs and a bunch of shit jobs. I’m kinda wondering when I’ll get desperate enough to start applying for the shit jobs…

Los Angeles. I got laid off in November when Viacom went on a firing spree and MTV cut our show off a month early (I was working in reality). They didn’t even bother to edit and air the last ten episodes we had they just called our producers and told us to have our asses out of their building by Friday (This was on a Monday, BTW and they wanted us out on Wednesday but we fought for the full week).

I’m now with two temp agencies, neither of which has any work for me, tried to join two other temp agencies, both of whom turned me down because they barely had the work for the people they already had.

My unemployment is literally breaking even every month so I have no way of saving money and my attempts to find a regular non-industry 9-5 have turned up nothing. Gas is also inching back up and I’ve noticed that the pinto beans I’ve usually bought have risen from 89 cents to almost 2 dollars for a packet. The other staple foods I get have also risen. Of my friends several are unemployed and those currently working at Warner Bros. and ABC are praying they don’t lose their jobs.

I moved from temp work to a permanent job with Goodwill. The thrift stores are pretty much recession proof. But I’m barely over minimum wage. My husband is still a temp worker and the rare jobs he gets aren’t delivering the hours they originally offered. My brother is a substitute teacher and will be paid in IOUs from the state of <strike>bankruptcy</strike> California.
The grocery stores are advertising less, and running specials more often on things like canned beans and boxed mac & cheese. I understand in Watsonville unemployment is slouching towards <strike>Bethlehem</strike> 20%

RE: Post Office:

The reason they’re considering eliminating Tuesday delivery, rather than Saturday, is so that people wouldn’t have to go two consecutive days without mail delivery.

I’m living in the UK now, and looking for a job.  I moved here in January 2008 and wasn’t able to get my work permit until November 2008, just in time for the global financial apocalypse.  (Thanks, British Home Office!  Glad you sat on my application for so long!)

I’ve never had problems finding a job, ever.  I have skillz and lots of experience in my field.  But I’ve been looking for three whole months now, and nothing.  A couple of interviews, but no “you’re hired.”  Lots of rejections.  I’ve been sending out a good 4-5 applications a week at the very least, and usually more.  I’m starting to apply for assistant jobs at which I’d have turned up my nose a couple of years ago.  (But of course I probably won’t even get those because I’m “overqualified.”)  I know it hasn’t been that long that I’ve been actively looking, but it already seems like forever because I’ve been out of work for so long.  They make it just as financially tough as they possibly can for immigrants to the UK.  You can’t work or even look for work when you come over on a fiancee visa on pain of permanent deportation, no appeal, and then even when you’re married they take a looooooong time to get you your work visa.

I just got another rejection from an employer today, for a low-paying job in my field that I definitely thought I had a good shot at, because my skills matched almost exactly and the pay was so low that I thought the competition might not be so fierce.  The HR woman who told me I hadn’t been shortlisted said that they got an almost unbelievable number of applications for the position, hundreds and hundreds.

Despite all of this, we’re lucky.  My husband has a somewhat stable (we hope!) job with a huge multinational and his salary is enough to keep us afloat.  But it’s very tight, and I’m not enjoying the feeling of not contributing financially.  We’re not far away from real trouble if he does get laid off.  There have been odd rumblings in his workplace and he’s been worried enough to take out unemployment insurance for the mortgage.  But right now we have enough to eat and pay the bills and mortgage, and we’re completely debt-free other than the mortgage.  That’s a hell of a lot more than a lot of people have.  So I just keep telling myself that we’re lucky, so lucky, and I really believe it.

I just started my job as a court reporter last year in April.  It’s been weird, cause they ramped me up in jobs since starting out in this job is not so easy.  For a while there, I was rolling in the dough.  Now, there are lots more job cancellations and settlements.  However, for the long haul, I think my job is safe.  People tend to sue more in a crappy economy.

Well, here in Tucson, AZ, education just took it in the shorts…10% cut.

Oh, did I mention that that 10% was taken from THIS fiscal year, which ends in June? Yeah, the rethugs in Phoenix start deciding how to kill education some more for the next year in a week or so. The more regressive lege members are talking 25-30% cuts for next year, crowing about how these are permanent cuts, too.

I feel fortunate, because I think my job’s ok, my house is paid for (luck and planning. we busted our asses to put a bunch down, bought a lot less house than we qualified for, and put as much extra money as we could squeeze into principle every year), and we have a decent pile of savings. This is good, because if I do get laid off, we’re gonna have to live off of those savings for a long time. This is the good news.

The bad news? No way can we afford to relocate, because at the moment, our house ain’t worth squat.

The way that the R’s running this state (THANKS Janet, you %%#$@!) are going Arizona will be a year or two behind the rest of the country in recovery, and we’re definitely sliding into 50th place in a lot of stuff. There have eben been some of them talking about refusing any federal money from the stimulous package, because it has ‘strings attached’.

Metro Atlanta - the only upside? Less traffic on the road. And not enough less traffic to make it worthwhile. My wife and I both have government jobs; mine is only part-time though, and between the two of us, we still need more income. But even crappy part-time jobs are hard to find; no one in our immediate locale is hiring, and there’s a limit to how far it is worthwhile to drive for that kind of pay.

Beans are just following the rice trend… I now buy in bulk at the run-down ethnic farmer’s markets, and wash everything well. We may have to apply for food stamps… I’m also supposed to be going back to school, but I don’t know if I can get a student loan - or do they look at need more than credit history?

Here in NC as well.  I’m in grad school, currently with full funding, and am rather inclined to stay in school and try to wait out the storm.  My fiance works retail—good retail though, full time with benefits—and he’s only in danger of losing his job if the entire store closes.  They’d lay off several other people before they’d lay him off.  That doesn’t seem too likely right now; their business is fairly good at the moment, especially considering the economy.  It’s possible that the entire mall might close, if a bunch of the other stores close.  Hopefully that won’t happen.

If he were to lose his job, things would be very tough.  Survivable—I’ve done the budget and I could theoretically pay all the bills myself, though it would be very tight and we’d be eating ramen—but very tough, and we’d really be a breath away from disaster.

Frankly the NC economy has not been great since the tech bubble burst.  It’s been hard to get a job here since 2001, and a lot of displaced techies have fallen off the unemployment rolls or become severely underemployed.  It’s getting a lot worse now and I’m frankly scared.  If any of us loses our income, I don’t think there will be any chance of replacing it.

It’s not “where I am” but it’s where I grew up and I still have family there and Michigan is fucked. Both of my brothers-in-laws have recently lost their jobs. The unemployment offices in Michigan are complete madhouses. There isn’t enough of the economy left for “reconstruction,” it needs a complete do-over.

The rest of the country can call it’s current condition as a Recession, but Michigan is definitely in a depression, and if it doesn’t get help soon, it’s going to spread.

I live in Toledo, OH, about a mile from the OH/MI line.

MaggieB, me too.  I live near UT.  And the economy here sucks like nobody’s business. 

And yeah, we’re doing okay, all things considered.  The husband works on campus in a pretty secure job, I teach part time in the physics department and sub for TPS.  And while I’m not subbing daily like I used to (what with everybody and their brother being laid off, the district is rolling in subs at the moment), I do get called 2-3 days a week.  But, we can pay all our necessary bills, even if we don’t have as much (or any, really) left over for savings at the end of the month as we did a year ago.  And we do still have some savings, which is good for at least a couple of months, assuming one or both of us does lose the job.

Our household just paid the rent and now has $5 to buy 4 weeks worth of food.  Food banks in our area are completely exhausted and we can’t get food stamps because I can’t do the mandatory work requirement.

I’m thinking about committing a crime to get arrested or killing myself to relieve the economic burden on my husband.

Does that answer your question?

Vermont. State is cutting workers, cutting the salaries of those who are left. IBM is cutting, price of milk to farmers just his a six-year low. Oh, and they’ve cut the paving and snow-removal budgets as well, which is stupid as well as dangerous. The restaurants and stores are looking kinda empty.

Finding a new job is tough in the metro-DC area, but other than the forced furlough suffered by MD state employees, most people I know are at least economically stable, jobwise. The people I know are unhappy about knowing that they’re stuck where they are, but no one has been sent to the chopping block yet.

Boston and metro west ‘burbs:  I work in operations for a mutual fund company.  You make money based on net sales and assets under management.  Our AUM have dropped about 45% from this time last year.  Needless to say, we had layoffs and no one got raises.  We probably won’t get bonuses either.  I can still manage my expenses just fine and have room to cut back if I need to.  But my savings are crap.  I’ve only got about a month’s salary saved (not counting 401K, defined benefit pension, IRA) so if I got laid off, there would be a scary race going on to find another job.  Companies are still hiring, but because there are so many unemployed people, roles that they previously would have opened to people with only 3-5 years experience are now going to people with 5-8 years experience.  You have to be much higher qualified than the job really calls for, because the competition is THAT fierce.  And because so many departments are understaffed, my company in particular is preferential to external hires with no learning curve rather than internal hires with a small learning curve because they don’t have the staff to offer any training at all.  Pretty much sucks.  But I’m happy I’m still employed.  So far.

Seattle:

WaMu is dead.  ~8000
Boeing is concentrating on their secondary business of laying people off ~10,000
Microsoft ~3000.  5000 laid off rehiring 2000 in different positions.
Starbucks ~1000

Also cuts in City, State and public Universities

As a Canadian working with mostly American clients, I’m doing better since the US dollar started to get stronger. Parity with the Canadian dollar was a scary thing.

Sirkowski - my best friend is a Canuck and working in the States.  She’s been paying her student loans for years now (converting USD to CAD) and is nowhere near a $0 balance.  When the USD-CAD exchange rate hit its high several months back she nearly had a heart attack.  I started cracking jokes about it to cashiers, asking them if they could give me Canadian coins instead of quarters.    Sometimes it got a laugh.

Thank you for the info! If I can’t get a job within the next couple of months, I’ll have to get back to school anyway… I’ll have to do a cost-benefit on the living expenses thing. Sigh. I hate mortgaging the future, but I hate stagnating even more.

What cynickal said about Seattle (hi, cynickal).  My daughter can’t find even a fast-food job because her competition is older workers who are desperate for that second/third job.  My IT job’s pretty secure because without us the companies we support would have to shut their doors, but my heart breaks for everyone else out there who lie awake at night worrying about their situations.  The local food bank is my #1 extra-money recipient right now.

Godless Heathen, where are you at?  Can we send you some food?

DC proper.  Was one of the masses of people nationwide who got laid off on 1/26.  I got a month of severance (which I hope to squeeze and stretch as far as possible) and maybe 2 months of rent/expenses saved.  I am currently making lists of jobs to apply to once I get my head sorted enough to re-work my resume and standard cover letters.  Grateful for being vegan since my meals are cheap to make and the bunnies don’t mind if I feed them more of my own veggie scraps rather than full-up veggies like usual.  Hoping that I can find some sort of work before I have to resort to working at Booz or Lockheed or some other defense-y corporate-y place (no offense to current employees of such but my heart is hippie even if my skills are geek).