I want this to be a thread of everybody's personal stories of what is
economically going on in your area right now, and how bad it really is
out there. Like for me, I live in a small county in North Idaho, like
30,000 people. In the last month alone this county has lost around 5%
of all the jobs we had, with more coming in the near future. So how is
it in your neck of the woods?

Tiny little town in upstate New York. Right now the town is being
forced to cut services because of an outstanding $75,000 owed to them
by the community for property tax and water bills. No one is paying,
because few CAN pay.

Even back in the summertime here, people were having their electric
shut off for lack of payment. Now that the snow has begun to fall
here, I can't imagine what's going to happen when it gets turned off
now cause they can't afford it.

I work at a company with 1550 employees; we have a hire freeze right
now because sales is a little bit down.

The company I work for out here, with about 600 employees we had our
first layoff a few months ago, and we laid off 10% of the employees.
Since then I can't count how many people have quit, and got another
job somewhere else.

for us in a medium sized city in south west ohio manufacturing is the
lifeblood of our city and surrounding area.  over the past few years
we have seen a number of major manufacturing jobs leave the area but
now it seems to be getting much worse.

we have a major GM plant that provides a huge amount of money in taxes
to the city that is closing its doors very soon.  i'm afraid that we
will continue to see more mfg jobs leaving the area and our city here
will crumble into dust.

i don't have any specific numbers but i think ohio is just below
michigan in job losses recently.  it's bad.

our company just let go 4 people in one day and a spending freeze on
all discretionary spending has been put in place.

Williamsburg VA - lots of wealth in this town, so things haven't
changed much. Housing sales are way down though, and several small
businesses have closed shop. Budweiser has a plant here, and some
people are worried about the InBev takeover. Colonial Williamsburg
just announced hundreds of lay-offs, and the College of William & Mary
has had millions cut from its State budget.

I work for a med comm in southern NJ near Philadelphia, 60 employees.
We seem to be okay as we have contracts signed for the coming year,
but that's assuming they can pay us.  I haven't seen or heard of any
mass lay offs, but I know tax revenues for NJ and Philadelphia are way
down and the politicians are planning massive cutbacks accross the
board.

Northcentral NC.  Every day the paper has another local company
announcing layoffs.  Mine is closing and moving everything to Asia.
Hiring freezes in place everywhere it seems.  I believe the local
unemployment rate is around 7%.

The State of California is handing out notices for 5% reduction for
State employees salary.My wife go the notice yesterday from
Arnie.Layoffs will follow.

In just about the nearest town to mine, they have just under 2,000
people, last month the lumber mill was bought out, and shutdown. They
had about 250 jobs there, which was almost all the jobs that town had.
Now the service establishments, as well as the auto parts, and chain
equipment stores, are all concerned, rightfully so, that they too will
go by the wayside considering that they got the majority of their
business from the mill.

Ann Arbor, MI - I work for a privately owned aftermarket engine
components company.  Like the rest of the auto industry in Detroit and
surrounding areas, we have gone through bankruptcy, reacquisition,
hiring freezes, layoffs, etc.  I was recently hired so I don't have
too much risk in losing my job.

We are working to make it through the next year to be ready for
economic gains in 2010.

Also, I should mention that I previously worked for American Axle in
Detroit, enough said.

Private, low cost medical device manufacturer in Orange County, 1000
employees. No layoffs yet, hiring freeze, production overtime cut,
sales down ~20%, and plans to expand into the already purchased
building have been put on hold.

Even without any layoffs, cutting overtime cuts the salary of the ~500
employees by 10-30%, effectively removing whatever disposable income
they had... if any before.

Southern California - Sales Guy - We do a lot of business with the
plants along the Mexico border. Crossed yesterday and Kenworth had
just laid off 700 worders, Bose that makes speakers for GM cars off by
80% and most other companies down to one limited shift. Huge plants
looked llike ghost towns.  I have not seen it like this in 20 years
and it scared the crap out of me. Plan to start hording water, spam
and bullets today :)

I'm in Canada and I've noticed things starting to tighten around here
too.

My firm is reassessing all open positions to see if they really need
to be filled. A girl friend of mine just had her position terminated
last night and was told her company was doing pretty big labour force
reduction.

Also, I should mention that Michigan has been in a recession for 10
years now.  I was lucky to find a job out of college.

Yeah, there has been some bad economic numbers come out of CA. Have
you managed to stay out of the way of all of it so far cc?

I take it you are in Michigan. What field did you get into there?

I moved out to the NE Oregon coast last summer since I'm an internet
consultant (web designer, developer, seo expert) and my work isn't
contingent upon geographic location.  But...client web funds have
dried up so I have shifted to jobs in the home health sector just to
guarantee some steady pay.  I've been a web developer for over 12
years, though, and this is the toughest I've ever seen it.  My clients
are all over the nation so that means that budgets are getting tighter
all over...

I kind of knew this was coming so I've become  very involved in the
community, non-profits and we are building solutions for affordable
housing, community gardening, shared transportation, recycling/
sharing, etc. So there is security there...

Also, these communities out here know how to pull their resources
together and fend for themselves...we were the ones riding out the
130+ mph winds when that hurricane came through last winter.  Power
was out for over a week in some places and downed trees blocked roads
for days.

So, I guess I recommend finding a supportive community to ride out
what is coming down the pike in the next few years...  And being
versatile and flexible never hurts you, either...

re california: Arnie will have to take his show on the road looking
for spare change,maybe as much as 20 billion when revenue loses are
in.Problem is ,he can't sing,and he can't dance.

lunadau:  "NE Oregon cost"? You mean the the NW surely.

Kansas City:

I'm fine, my company is actually expanding and increasing our profits
and revenue each quarter, although we are funding our leaps and bounds
with credit which does spook me a bit.

Houses all over the place are up for sale, my ex girlfriends mother
just bought TWO more houses one for 11k the other for 20k, by the way
she is 100% blue collar with no degree and she only makes ~$23 an
hour.  With minor work to each house she can turn around and rent them
out for double the mortgage which is the going rate in the SUBURB
where the houses are located.

My grandfather got laid off last week.  He's not too terribly worried
though, hes drawing pension and social security.  They will be forced
to cut back though.

If you go into the city the jobless rate is insane, but then again
that's not far from any other time.  KC is full of moochers and lazy
people who reproduce like rodents and expect the government to support
them.

I am employed by a consulting engineering firm in northern
California.  I serve as City Engineer to a community of 7,200 people
that has multiple subdivision projects in foreclosure (developers went
under) and the sureties/bonding companies have been notified to build
the infrastructure.  The projects are being foreclosed over time so
that the banks(Comerica and others) can spread their losses out.  The
City Attorney and I are seriously concerned that the surities/bonding
companies may go bust too leaving the City with a bigger mess.  In my
26 years of engineering, I have never seen anything close to this
fiasco.

there will be a lot of ghost towns after this recession, especially
the ones that is solely supported by auto industry
and now the market is up, great....

Oceanbo, Assuming your wife makes... saaaayyyyyyyy $40,000, she just
handed $2,000 to Illegal Mexicans since that is what broke your states
budget.
I don't get the open arms policy you guys over there have.
The fruit picking argument doesn't work because it's been proven these
people cost a lot more than they contribute.
They hurt us by sending US cash home. I also don't get Mexico. It has
more natural resources than the US in $ respects.

North of Tampa it's weird. Giant new subdivisions are being built
while property values fall, I don't get that either.
I built on 5 acres and expected a 1/2 million dollar value within 6
months.
Between the market, divorces, deaths and other emegency sales, comps
for these properties have me breaking even if I sell now.

So far, everything else seems to be holding, but the general concensus
is that we're approaching a cliff. Downtown looks very dead during the
day.