Has anyone seen any problems in their local economies that suggests a recession is coming

Kentish_Dave

So an event years after the vote, at a time when not much is going on around Brexit is, in your mind, Brexit fears hitting home?

That’s not really a supportable conclusion, is it?

Do you blame a bad cold on what you had for Christmas dinner the year before?

Thrugelmir

zagubov wrote: »

Weirdly (by our standards) it built up a workforce population with gumption and self-reliance that we in the west are a bit short of.

The West has become lazy. As over the past couple of decades you become affluent by owning property, no skills required. While employing cheap labour both directly and indirectly. One day the UK will be producing tit tat for the Chinese.

Hectors_House

triathlon wrote: »

For several weeks now I have had various conversations with various industries and people on how they are struggling with orders and work, Just had a conversation with some top end builders who have dried up with a few of them taking a long summer break abroad and making the most of it, and hoping things will be better in the Autumn. I know a few retailers and friends in the food industry and they have been hit for quite a while now.

Looks like Brexit fears are finally hitting home, how can this country be so stupid, lets just pray we come to our senses before it gets worse. Thank God I am in the BTL game, the last place people will cut back will be the roof over their head. I suspect a recession is heading our way by the end of 2019/start of 2020. Has anyone else seen any warning signs?, it seems to be hitting so many areas now, even the trades, plumbers, chippies and sparks who I know a lot of and who you can never tie down are finding things a little tougher which is a shocker for me. But looking on the bright side I can start fishing around more for cheaper prices now.

It might just be the area I live in (up the coast from Great Yarmouth) but I don’t think we ever, really pulled our selves out of the 2008 recession.

I’ve always thought it wouldn’t take much for us to slip back into it.

Up my way there is large-scale development planned but it’s expected most of the buyers will be retirees rich off the back of the increase in the value of their London property. So not really a realistic indicator of things.

zagubov

My "village" has lost its last bank branch. Natwest went first, then HSBC then LloydsTSB and now Santander.

Still got plenty of good shops and restaurants. But cash machines are getting a bit thinner on the ground.

Thrugelmir

zagubov wrote: »

I used to work with someone who grew up in what used to be called the Eastern Bloc; she said everybody had to train for a skilled trade as well as getting academic qualifications, even if they took a degree course. You might have a maths degree and be a trained plumber, or one example was someone with e medical degree who also was a hairdresser.

If you couldn't find a job using our degree you were expected to work using your trade skill, as there was no unemployment support. Neither were you expected to just muddle along doing a manual job amateurishly, the way people in the UK or the US might decide to turn a hobby into a living.

Weirdly (by our standards) it built up a workforce population with gumption and self-reliance that we in the west are a bit short of.

Funnily enough I was chatting to a guy today whose father and grandfather along with himself worked in the railway works in Swindon. he left school and went there for a job. He was offered one of 57 different apprenticeships. Became a skilled engineer over the years. Opportunities now are far and few between to start at the bottom and work your way up. In it's heyday the works employed 18,000 people. Now all that's left is a smattering of small specialist engineering workshops. Skills are literally dying off.

zagubov

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Funnily enough I was chatting to a guy today whose father and grandfather along with himself worked in the railway works in Swindon. he left school and went there for a job. He was offered one of 57 different apprenticeships. Became a skilled engineer over the years. Opportunities now are far and few between to start at the bottom and work your way up. In it's heyday the works employed 18,000 people. Now all that's left is a smattering of small specialist engineering workshops. Skills are literally dying off.

There are those that will say we're being flexible and readjusting to modern demands.

I worry we're resting on the branches of a tree whose limbs we're sawing off one by one...:(

Sapphire

zagubov wrote: »

I used to work with someone who grew up in what used to be called the Eastern Bloc; she said everybody had to train for a skilled trade as well as getting academic qualifications, even if they took a degree course. You might have a maths degree and be a trained plumber, or one example was someone with e medical degree who also was a hairdresser.

If you couldn't find a job using our degree you were expected to work using your trade skill, as there was no unemployment support. Neither were you expected to just muddle along doing a manual job amateurishly, the way people in the UK or the US might decide to turn a hobby into a living.

Weirdly (by our standards) it built up a workforce population with gumption and self-reliance that we in the west are a bit short of.

Yes, this is so true. The one good thing communism (in the 'Eastern Bloc') gave to working people (ignoring the stifling oppression, as experienced by some relatives) was this dual education – you ended up with many people with manual jobs who had a relatively good education and an excellent work ethic. They didn't expect taxpayers to give them free anything, so had to work hard to progress.

What the education system appears to be doing in Britain is to turn out many weak, eventually to be no-hopers, especially given the developments in technology, which will lead to ever-greater diminution in the need for employees, the consequences of which we, as a society, are sadly unprepared for.

There will always be a need for some jobs that cannot be done by bots, but they are likely to be niche and/or quite specialised, and will require high-level skills and experience (and I include things like trades among them).