View Full Version : Hard Times
Tuckerfan
03-31-2004, 07:25 PM
Today at work, the boss's son-in-law came into the shop with a flyer he'd found somewhere. It was for "Apex Tooling" in Texas and it read like an obituary, they didn't bother to hide the fact that they were desperate for work. Made my blood run cold just reading it since we're nearly in the same kind of shape as they are.
It's bad everywhere. I spoke with a friend of mine yeasterday, he's a welding instructor at a local technical college who has been teaching there for thirty years. He told me that recent budget cuts meant a $7000.00/year cut in pay for him, and the closure of several departments. Also visited with some guys at a truck trailer manufacturing facility, they expected to close their doors by summer, after several decades of business.
I'm having trouble getting aluminum I need for my current project. The local supplier has had material on order for over a month and is not able to find a source for certain sizes of aluminum and steel. He has had to turn away jobs. It's putting a crimp in my plans too.
motorworks
03-31-2004, 07:49 PM
Hard times all over:
4000 jobs lost in NFLD and tax increases!!
"The government plans to cut 4,000 positions during the next four years. That includes 700 jobs this year. Sullivan says retirements and a regular turnover in jobs should keep layoffs to a minimum.
"The people of Newfoundland and Labrador understand that we have reached this critical point in our history as a province of Canada and that government must act now to put its fiscal house in order," he told the legislature."
Smokedaddy
03-31-2004, 07:52 PM
Duh,
Where have you been the last 30 months.
-SD:
Tuckerfan
03-31-2004, 08:18 PM
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Smokedaddy:
Duh,
Where have you been the last 30 months.
-SD:</font>Temping. This is the first real job I've had since May 2002, but as bad as things have been, I've not seen a flyer saying, "We're dying here" as this one did.
jimco
03-31-2004, 08:49 PM
work in steel industry,working as many hours as can handle.setting up shop in-house to keep costs down.g&l 340t is next piece to add to shop equipment.
PolskiFran
03-31-2004, 09:55 PM
I was at an auction a while back, one of the last people in the tool room where the sale was wrote on their note board: "I'm only working here until a good fast food place opens up" It was sad.
Frank
CCWKen
03-31-2004, 09:57 PM
Makes you wonder where all that high-priced machinery sold on ebay is going. The pickens are mighty slim down here in South Texas.
On the brighter side, Toyota is building a new truck factory not too far from here (15 miles). Seems about 20 suppliers are also planning to move into the area. "They" say, that should open up over 3,000+ jobs by 2006.
We don't seem to be hit as hard in this area. One of the reasons is this area has NEVER been a heavy industrial area. We got hit bad when Kelly AFB closed. A lot of aircraft maintenance and support shops went hungry. Slow recovery but this area is actually on an upward move now. Land prices sure have gone up.