How bad will it get?

thriftybabe

Pobby I agree with you. With Next reporting a down turn I am sure others are to follow. Again things have not hit the majority of companies yet but one this is sure once one card falls the others are sure to.

thriftybabe

As OH has been fortunate enough to be in work for the last 12 years without any problems he simply assumes things will be the same. Even though the company he is pricing for have asked him to reduce his prices! To be honest it has only really hit our work in the last few week although I have been rabbiting on to him for the last 6 months about this. He has another 2 big contracts in the pipeline but nothing guaranteed and one is sale dependant - i told him not too hold out too much hope. We will see what happens in the next few weeks and we will have a good idea how work is going to go until Christmas. I am going to hopefully persuade him to hold off to then - wish me luck as it is difficult when someone is burying their head in the sand!

PasturesNew

Go through this site and collect all the relevant links regarding building firms. Get all the share price charts. All the stories about them going bust.

Start a new thread here: Are you in the Building Trade - is work falling off?
Start a similar thread on 2-3 other similar forums.

Collect evidence.

Then show him and give him 2 weeks to prove the opposite is true from stuff he can find. As he's trying to find small crumbs he will find more point to what you are saying.

thriftybabe

PasturesNew great idea thanks for that. I will do it on this site although can you point me in the direction of any others - sorry for being cheeky but do not know of any others. thanks again

PasturesNew

thriftybabe wrote: »

PasturesNew great idea thanks for that. I will do it on this site although can you point me in the direction of any others - sorry for being cheeky but do not know of any others. thanks again

I don't know any.
I'd google it.

You never said what your OH does. But here's a few randomly googled:
Plumbers: http://www.ukplumbersforums.co.uk/
Plasterers: http://www.plasterersforum.co.uk/forum/YaBB.pl

But you can find your own.

pickles110564

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've probably been laid off at least once a year for the past 25 years.

Makes your CV pretty grubby looking, as if it's your fault

No one is that unlucky, It must be your fault.
We have people at our firm that have been over 40years and loads over 30 and myself 25.

PasturesNew

pickles110564 wrote: »

No one is that unlucky, It must be your fault.
We have people at our firm that have been over 40years and loads over 30 and myself 25.

ha ha ... how could it be my fault? I was never important.

I've worked for companies where:
- programmers ran off with the source code, having written a time-bug into all the customer software.
- a company expanded into the US right before the WTC terror attacks and experienced an overnight drop in their London bookings in the West End AND nobody wanting to fly into their US office for the service either.
- an assurance company had been going 150 years and was bought out; new buyers closed the IT Dept in favour of keeping it at Head Office
- two jobs where I was told I had to turn it from loss-making to profit-making, only to be told that was a lie (after I'd done it) and they'd hired me just to pretend they were trying and expected it to fail.
- general small companies who didn't invest anything in themselves so slipped behind what other companies were doing so lost market share
- a company that was bought out by a company who liked to spend too much, that then pretty much crashed and burned after spending too much on hospitality.
- a College who recruited me as they expected to win a big contract; instead they lost the contract they had and the contract winner managed to snatch their patch off them too

Loads more examples I could give.

PasturesNew

3 examples of how I can jinx things, all from the last 8 months since I moved here:
- company I planned to approach for work as I'd contracted for them before ... announced a downsizing and laid off 100 IT contractors.
- BBC I was half way through submitting an application to, announced job losses and the potential selling off of the whole building in these parts
- company I went to temp for, was bought out/merged and the MD himself was even leaving the organisation as a result of that.

8 months I tell you .... and all I did was think about working for those or step into their premises briefly!

BettiePage

phil_b wrote: »

Fortunately people like you are few and far between.

Whats that supposed to mean?

pavlovs_dog

there have been several reports in the news lately of major retail/leisure developments that have been halted as work was due to start due to lack of credit, fears about how shaky the market is etc.

if you dont need the extension, i would hang fire for now. if worst comes to the worst, you might find yourselves with little money in the back, and a house that you spent a lot of money improving, money which you might not recoup if you had to sell in a struggling market.