Not surprised. One of the results of the Obama economy.
I have a fallback plan of a sorts, luckily I am in Alaska and I bought a high end gold detector this spring so if my job peters out at the very least I have the tool to possibly find myself some local gold nuggets. And I do know where within a reasonable distance from home, nothing like the gold rush shows.
At $60 a gram or more as nuggets are sometimes worth more by their size or shape I could scratch out some income.