I am now a statistic...got laid off.

quote:

Originally posted by exstasie The only thing I was getting at was that you can purchase a house with as little as 5% down, and in same cases not even that much.

Up until recently in Canada people could buy homes with 0% down and still get high-ratio insurance on the mortgage (CMHC, Genworth, etc). Some lenders even offered negative-down mortgages where you could mortgage up to 110% of the value of the home (this was VERY common in the USA, and was available for a long period of time, whereas in Canada it was a more recent concept [<5 years]).

Also, US mortgages have longer amortization periods (up to 50 years in some case) - which IMO is a good idea as it gets more people owning homes. Canada was never this high, and 30-35 year amortizations were a relatively new concept (much like the 100+% financing).

5% purchases were (and still are) possible in Canada when buying resale homes. New builders require more due to the fact they need to finance construction costs.

Thanks to the conservative government 0% mortgages and amortizations above 30 years (?) are now uninsurable (CMHC said they wouldn't insure and the others followed suit).

The last thing to realize is in the USA, a portion of mortgage interest can be deducted against income to reduce taxes - which in concept should make it easier for one to buy a home. In reality however this only drove the home prices up (a $500k home in Canada is equal to a $800-900k home in the USA). The original idea was to give people the ability to buy a home with lower incomes but it had somewhat of the opposite impact as it drove prices artificially higher (in the more distant past) plus inflated a market in a time of easy credit (in the more recent past).

quote:

Originally posted by Dr. DAS I am now a statistic...got laid off.

Sorry to hear that Dave Big hug xx

i really don't want to stay in school forever but it looks like doing that is one of the only options.

companies aren't going to hire people without experience when there is a million people with experience looking for the same positions.

What are you looking for Marg?

We fired someone for cause today. Still sucks.

What are you looking for Marg?

We fired someone for cause today. Still sucks.

A few years ago the company I worked for had several rounds of layoffs over a year and finally my luck ran out and they laid off me and most of the 60 people on my floor.

"Your services are no longer required" - that's the line the boss read to everyone, really original!

Wierd thing is the week before I got laid off headhunters were still calling trying to hire me for other companies. After I got laid off they weren't interested, it was like I had the plague, people treat you like you have a disease they might catch! Other people said the same thing happened to them.

Company was so stupid that within 2 weeks they realized they chopped too many people so they actually hired back some of the same people they laid off, after needlessly paying some over $10,000 in severance pay.

Anyway lottsa luck to the newly unemployed.

I switched jobs a few years back and 3 days later my old team was entirely outsourced to India. Dodged the bullet on that one BIG TIME.

No idea what's going on today. Rumor has it that we are loosing like 200 people. Already 1 girl has left my team like 5 from my department. This is such a shitty day. I can't believe it's only 10:30... its going to be a long day.

*Nervous*

I was just about to search for this thread, and thank you for bumping it for my convenience.


I got this email last night from our CEO;

quote:

So we are going to take action. We have decided to further variablize our cost structure by reducing base pay and some benefits across HP. My base pay will be reduced by 20 percent. The base pay of Executive Council members will be reduced by 15 percent. The base pay of other executives will be reduced by 10 percent. The base pay of all other exempt employees will be reduced by 5 percent. For non-exempt employees, base pay will be reduced by two-and-a-half percent. Additional efficiencies, including changes to the US 401(k) plan and the share ownership plan, will also be implemented. Of course, the implementation of all of these actions is subject to compliance with local laws and regulations. Follow-up communications will detail the timing and the plans in your location."

I already volunteered for 10 unpaid days this year (10 long weekends this summer, how selfish of me) which is a 5% pay cut, and now this additional mandatory 5% cut just blows, and I have to work through it too.

Days like this I wish there was work-to-rule in the salaried private sector, not gonna happen

Yeah i know what a lot of you guys are going through my dad works in the auto industry, and he's a supervisor and he got laid off for a month and is not on 4 day work weeks

Me on the other hand were raising the base rate at my job in april and again in october and they told us that there would be no layoffs as we grew as a company last year. I'm really thankfull that in these hard times i have job security.

No complaints here.

We are hiring 3,000 in the next year

quote:

Originally posted by Abercrombie I was just about to search for this thread, and thank you for bumping it for my convenience. I got this email last night from our CEO; I already volunteered for 10 unpaid days this year (10 long weekends this summer, how selfish of me) which is a 5% pay cut, and now this additional mandatory 5% cut just blows, and I have to work through it too. Days like this I wish there was work-to-rule in the salaried private sector, not gonna happen

You still at the same company as before?
I saw your results the other day....certainly not what Hurd was hoping for but it was inevitable in this environment.
At a company that size I would not be complaining about a cut, there is so much middle management it's ridiculous.

I was told last week we are not laying off anyone for cost reasons, but basically doing strategic replacements so we can emerge from this with a stronger team. Not a good time to be underperforming, that's for sure.

Saw this the other day, and thought 'what a logical alternative to being laid off'.

quote:

Work-sharing agreements a 'shockingly well-hidden' alternative to layoffs TORONTO - Ian Kersley had a young family and a mortgage in 1982 when the threat of layoffs loomed at the Algoma Steel plant in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. He says if it wasn't for a work-sharing agreement, his lack of seniority would have almost certainly led to him being handed a pink slip and leaving the Sault for good. "In '82 we did this, and in '82 I had a year in the plant, I had two young kids and a mortgage and I went on work sharing then, and I know for sure if I'd have been laid off then I'd have been heading back from whence I came," Kersley said. Instead, a government program that allows employees to cut their hours to avoid layoffs - while taking only a minimal pay cut - allowed Kersley to keep his job and climb the ranks of his union to become president of United Steelworkers Local 2724 today. Under the work-sharing program, employees work four days a week while collecting employment insurance on the fifth day. With the Canadian unemployment rate expected to rise to nearly nine per cent this year - from 7.2 per cent now - and the economy predicted to shed 350,000 jobs, work sharing is an option for those seeking to cut costs while avoiding major layoffs. Over the years, many Canadian companies have taken advantage of the federal EI job-sharing plan, though it is has been little publicized since it was introduced more than 25 years ago during the early 1980s recession. At that time, the jobless rate hit 13 per cent after a massive streamlining in the auto, steel and industrial sectors caused by high inflation and the second global oil prices shock. One of the latest companies to use the work-sharing program is integrated steelmaker Essar Steel, which has started the plan at the former Algoma Steel operation in northern Ontario, a region hard hit by steel layoffs over the years. The members of Kersley's local recently agreed to a 26-week work-sharing agreement at the Essar Steel Algoma plant, where Kersley said he hopes the plan will keep young workers in the Sault just as it kept him there more than a quarter-century ago. "Especially up in the Sault, in northern Ontario here, it's very, very hard to attract young technical professional people to the steel plant ... so when we get people here it's nice to keep them here." Kersley's 600-member local narrowly approved the job-sharing deal, with 54 per cent voting for it and 46 per cent voting against. He said most of the votes against came from senior union members who knew their jobs were relatively secure and didn't want to take a pay cut. Under the deal, employees receive $89 in employment insurance on their one day off a week, which works out to a pay cut of approximately 12 per cent, Kersley said. Frank Reid, director of the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto, said that while some workers simply can't afford to take that kind of pay cut, the benefits of work sharing are undeniable. "If you think about the tradeoff, that you're working four days a week, getting half your pay on the fifth day from EI so that you end up with something like 90 per cent of your normal pay and you get one extra day off per week, like a long weekend every week, that's something that would sound appealing to many workers," Reid said. More experienced workers tend to see work sharing as an affront to the hallowed principle of seniority, but Reid said the program can benefit everyone. "To say, 'Well, we want to enforce seniority so the junior workers suffer and the senior workers keep their jobs,' when you compare that to the alternative and say, everyone can actually benefit and perhaps be better off, why would you insist on making some junior members suffer?" Reid asked. He added that work sharing is "shockingly well-hidden," given that studies have shown productivity is higher under the program than it is after layoffs. With work sharing, workers don't have to be retrained to do new jobs, and it eliminates the toxic work environment that can result from workforce reductions. Although layoffs can save costs in ways work sharing can't - under most work-sharing agreements, employees still receive full benefits, for example - Reid said the increased productivity associated with work sharing, as well as the savings when the company decides to ramp up production again and doesn't have to hire and train new employees, actually tends to save businesses money in the long run. In its most recent budget, the federal government extended the length of time employers can use work-sharing agreements by 14 weeks to a maximum of one year. Members of another United Steelworkers local in Sault Ste. Marie recently voted down a work-sharing proposal. Local 9548, representing 470 workers at the Tenaris Algoma Tubes plant, unofficially voted two-to-one against the idea just prior to a two-week shutdown at the operation earlier this month. The company said late last week it will indefinitely lay off 130 of the plant's workers. Other companies have unofficially instituted work-sharing programs. In January, Rogers Publishing, which owns some of Canada's most popular magazines, including Maclean's and Chatelaine, gave its employees the option of working four days a week instead of five for a 20 per cent pay cut. In the United States, several states have work-sharing programs and major companies like Japanese carmaker Toyota have used the programs to keep skilled workers and cut costs in a tough business environment.

Gov of Canada website:
http://www1.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/epb/sid/cia/grants/ws/desc_ws.shtml

quote:

Originally posted by Skipper You still at the same company as before? I saw your results the other day....certainly not what Hurd was hoping for but it was inevitable in this environment. At a company that size I would not be complaining about a cut, there is so much middle management it's ridiculous. I was told last week we are not laying off anyone for cost reasons, but basically doing strategic replacements so we can emerge from this with a stronger team. Not a good time to be underperforming, that's for sure.

Yup, still here Skippy... 13 when you include my Compaq years.

What's shitty, is the execs are hadly losing as much as they say they are. 20-15% is nothing, because it's off their base salaray, and they get most of their income from the bonuses. It's BS ain't it?


..and Thanks Bobby! saving that one, and looking into it.

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