Unemployed Freepers?

self | April 14, 2002 | self

[SpyderTim]

Lucent to Cut 5,000 More Jobs - Source Reuters | April 11, 2002 | Ben Klayman

Posted on 4/12/02 11:59 PM Pacific by SpyderTim

Lucent to Cut 5,000 More Jobs - Source Thu Apr 11, 4:28 PM ET By Ben Klayman CHICAGO (Reuters) - Telecommunications equipment maker Lucent Technologies Inc. plans to cut about 5,000 more jobs than previously expected by the end of June because of the slowdown in the telecom sector, a source close to the company said on Thursday.

See the link for the rest of the article.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Report Abuse | Bookmark Discussion ] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just got to thinking, with the economy supposedly recovering, and layoffs continuing all around us, how many Freepers are currently out of work? How are they finding the job market?

1 posted on 4/12/02 11:59 PM Pacific by SpyderTim [ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: SpyderTim

Luckily the coapany I worked for Did Good and accelerated my options when I was voluntarily laid off. Job market is pretty bad out there in high tech (programming). At one time or another 10 friends of mine were laid off this past year.

2 posted on 4/13/02 8:31 AM Pacific by lelio [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: SpyderTim

Just got to thinking, with the economy supposedly recovering, and layoffs continuing all around us, how many Freepers are currently out of work? How are they finding the job market?

Agreed. I know more people in the last year that have gotten laid off, and have remained laid off, than I do those who had no work and found it. This "recovery" is pure fabrication and spin pushed by the WH. The facts are that over half the new jobs created are being done by the government! GDP has increased primarily because of government spending!

Smoke and mirrors.

3 posted on 4/13/02 8:35 AM Pacific by Kobyashi1942 [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Kobyashi1942

My company announced its office relocation way back in April of 2001. My last day was November 30. I've been networking and interviewing since then but haven't found quite what I'm looking for yet. It's not a bad job market if you know what you are doing, but it isn't as good as when I first graduate from college in 2000 either.

4 posted on 4/14/02 1:53 PM Pacific by SpyderTim [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

[FITZ]

And then there's the biggie! If the government lost the ability to fund itself without coming to the American people for those funds, first, would America even function?

Nope it would not function. There are way too many people who depend on government handouts ---and professions like health care would completely collapse if they had to depend on private money. Many grocery stores have most shoppers who are using food stamps and WIC and would shut their doors in one day if the government didn't pay those.

[RonPaulLives]

How ironic it was to see this post about unemployed Freepers. Friday was my last day at work after several years with VoiceStream Wireless in customer service management.

VoiceStream laid off everyone in customer service in the Louisville KY, Memphis TN, and Birmingham AL markets, and moved the responsibilities thereof to existing positions in Dallas TX and Jacksonville FL. And they gave us a grand total of nine days' notice that we were going to be kicked to the curve.

The severance package they are offering leaves a lot to be desired; they told us that our employee plans on our VoiceStream phones would be terminated with us (and that we would have to go through a credit check if we wanted to keep the phone); and they told us not to bother using any remaining VoiceStream employees as references, because company policy would not allow them to give us letters of recommendation.

Right now, I am contemplating whether I should go and sign up for unemployment. I have never been on unemployment for one day in my life, and don't like the entire concept. However, friends are telling me that I should do it because I pay into the system. I have a job possibility in sales with one company who has contacted me, but I have never done sales before. My degree is in communications and my work has always been in customer service and communications. I am looking for work in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. Any advice ???

[Myrddin]

Me, I'm in a sector of molecular biology.....stable work, only middling compensation

I graduated from Revelle College, UCSD in 1976 with a BA in Molecular Biology. Job prospects were not great at the time. I headed to grad school to pursue an MS in pathogenic bacteriology. Along the way, I decided that the rewards of smelling agar cooking in the lab, writing research papers and drawing a small income didn't make sense. The local FCC office fixed me up with a First Class Radiotelephone license with RADAR endorsement for a couple nights of study and 45 minutes sitting for the exam. 25 years later, my bookshelves are loaded with EE and CS texts. Having a cross functional set of skills in hardware and software engineering is a great way to dodge unemployment. There is always something interesting available and it usually pays fairly well.

[waterstraat]

I still dont see it letting up. Every day, I read about another plant closing and moving to mexico or canada. The programming industry is hiring lots of immigrants, and the auto companies are full of immigrants and H1-B visa people. Ive seen lots of american laid off, but very few immigrants are being laid off.

[Lazamataz]

I've been out of work here in Denver since the first of the year. It really sucks. I never thought I'd be unemployed this long. My severence pay is gone and I can't get unemployment (in the face of cutbacks, I resigned voluntarily after being promised a generous severence package which I now regret doing). My credit cards are maxed and I've had to ask for a loan from my folks. I've lost count of how many resumes I've sent out.

Can you program (efficiently and well) in Java?

[Jaidyn]

I'm over 50 and will lose my job soon. My last company left for Mexico then on to China. Two of my sons and a daughter-in-law are losing their jobs for the same reason...Mexico. They have more education than I do and my age is a factor whether people admit it or not. I hope I'm not reduced to being a greeter at Walmart! I can't live on the money so will have to work several jobs.

[Myrddin]

The company that writes my paycheck every two weeks doesn't care about age. I expect to work until I expire with my face planted in a keyboard. The key issue is having a good resume and the actual ability to make good on the claims in the resume. My company had me contracted out at $254/hr between June 2001 and December 2001. The customer employed my services to replace 4 Java programmers, 3 C++ programmers and a EE...concurrently. I'm on my second extension with the customer this year. The next 30 days have been arranged so that I can work from my home office in Idaho instead of 7 days at week at the customer's lab. I put in about 250 hours each month to cover all those positions on the very aggressive schedule that my customer is pushing.

I've been lining up new work for the balance of this year that I can do at the home office. I expect to transition off the crazy schedule with my current customer and work more normal hours for the balance of the year.

About the age issue: I'm 45. I've been working at this pace most of my life. I earned that BA in Molecular Biology from UCSD at age 19.

[blueriver]

The programming industry is hiring lots of immigrants, and the auto companies are full of immigrants and H1-B visa people. Ive seen lots of american laid off, but very few immigrants are being laid off.

I agree. I was laid off last June. I was able to get contract work for 2 months. The company I contracted for places ads in the paper for jobs that do not exist in order to satisfy a government requirement so that they can keep their H-1B employees. A lot of American engineers have been screwed out of their jobs and their careers thanks to our representatives in Congress.

[Drew68]

Can you program (efficiently and well) in Java?

Sadly, no. But I'm a quick learner. My last job (which I had for four years) was as a supervisor for an international call center. I supervised the office here in Denver and the one remotely in Vancouver over an EIC (phone via WAN) system. I also served on a team that wrote code for our active desktop applications but it was all in HTML and XML. No Java experience. Maybe it is time to get some.

[Myrddin]

The programming industry is hiring lots of immigrants, and the auto companies are full of immigrants and H1-B visa people.

Agreed. My current customer is financed by the auto industry. There are more non-citizens in the building than otherwise. Don't let that get you down. The 4 Java programmers I replaced (Vietnamese, Korean and 2 Indian) weren't worth their salaries. I accomplished more in the two weeks following their departure than all four had accomplished collectively in the 9 months prior. They were all very nice people who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag.

[FITZ]

Even if you wanted, you can't go to Mexico and get your job back ---they don't allow immigration. This town lost 12000 jobs to NAFTA and yet more people come from Mexico than ever. I don't see how it can continue.

[FITZ]

There are more non-citizens in the building than otherwise. Don't let that get you down.

It's interesting because so many companies are hiring cheaper immigrants and laying off Americans. The quality is going down ---homes built by illegals usually cost as much or more to the buyer but you see cupboards being hung crookedly and nails sticking out of walls. I guess it'll help in the long run because those houses aren't going to last and there will be more jobs to rebuild them ---unlike the way homes used to be built and they would last 50 years or more.

[AppyPappy]

I'm taking a Java class online through the university. It's rather useless but you get some exposure to Java. I have Javascript experience so it is nothing new. I installed Java on one of my test webservers and I am going to write some hooks in an Ergonomics system we are hosting on our box. Java is free and practical experience is better than college experience.

Code-wise, Java is just like any other web language (PHP, Javascript, etc). The university pushes it to the students but writes their own apps in PHP.

If you really want to learn coding, go to sourceforge.net and download one of the open-source apps and look at the code. Change the code and watch what happens.

[lodwick]

Prayers and good luck to you, and any others! Go get'em. JL

[FITZ]

If government spending even went on but had to be cut 10% across the board, I think there would be serious reprecussions. The government dependents will take to the streets because they've become so accustomed to having everything they want. If they had to cut back like unemployed working people do, they'd riot.

[Drew68]

If you really want to learn coding, go to sourceforge.net

Thanks for the great link. I'm looking forward to playing around with it.

[FITZ]

NAFTA is definitely the problem here in this part of the country along with very high levels of immigration. It might not be a problem in other areas though ---I'm just speaking from what I know by where I'm living. When we lost 12000 jobs, more businesses left and grocery store chains are closing. They aren't bringing in many jobs to replace those lost so there is a crisis. Our crisis was already occuring when the rest of the country was doing great.