A few weeks ago I was talking to an individual inside my industry and he was proudly saying that their business is recession-proof. It was the first time I had heard this word. What he really meant was this global economic meltdown is having no effect on his business. I was little bit surprised, but I said hey, good for him. This week, I talked to the same person and his opinion has changed. He was complaining about the economy and how it’s affecting their business.
In last few months we all have read and heard lots of news about recession and how you can make your job or business recession proof. But why just focus on job? I think it affects more than just your job. I want to divide this in the following categories
1. Job and Career
This is an obvious issue and most likely the recession has affected all of us in one way or another. My company is running at 80% of what we were doing a year ago! We lost a good 20% of so business to slowness in economy and overall decline in the market. Although this does not affect my monthly paycheck, this will affect the bonus and other perks. The yearly raise is already out of the question. Not to mention the fretfulness regarding the job security. So far our company has handled the recession very well, because we are owned by a very big company. For small business owners, it gets worst. On the other side, there are certain businesses which have no effect of recession or better yet, are thriving due to recession.
2. Health and Fitness
I was on a roll about a month ago! I was hitting gym 3-4 times a week, eating healthy and was in line with my weight loss goal. All of a sudden, the recession hit me! No folks, I am just kidding!! My reason to discontinue all that has nothing to do with recession. (I thought I might as well blame this on economy!) But it definitely has to do with the extreme cold weather we are having and the holidays. I need to stop being so lazy and get back on the track.
But seriously, I am sure there are some people whose health is affected by recession. There could be several reasons like not being able to afford the gym membership because you want to save money, or unable to continue the sports activity because you spend more hours at work to improve job security or not able to afford eating organic and fresh food because you are keeping money for other necessary expenses. It could be just plain mental depression.
3. Family and Friends
Recession has not affected this area of my life either. Fortunately, I don’t know anybody who has lost a job or a business due to recession. I don’t want to know.
You hear everyday that unemployment rates are going up. In US it has sneaked up to 7%. That means there is a chance that every 1 out of 14 people you know is out of work! That is scary. One more way it can affect your life is people who lose jobs might move away from your neighborhood or even your city, eventually you may lose contact with them.
The flip side of recession in this area of your life is, now that people don’t have cash to spend on vacations and other activities, they may want to socialize more. I mean just hang out at home and spend more time with close family and friends. So did the recession bring you close to your loved ones?
4. Dreams and Goals
This area of my life is definitely affected by recession. I am 30 years old and still have about 30 more years before retiring, that means as compared to some older folks (over 50) out there, my long term dreams are still intact and I will have several chances to make those come true. I feel bad for people who are very close to the retirement and have lost so much money recently that they will have to push out their retirement by few more years. However, some of my short term goals of savings and investments have definitely had an impact. I am not a big investor, but whatever little money I had in stocks is down by more than 50%!! I know I am in the same boat as most of the people. One of my other goals is to take a cruise or a foreign vacation, but slowly it looks like I am going to have to sacrifice this one. I just don’t feel financially secured anymore to justify this vacation.
5. Others
I can think of some unique ways in which recession can hit your life. Family extension plans, marriage, renovating your house, donations and charity contributions, taking care of chronic health issues, desires of higher education etc. At this time, there is no other part of my life which has had a significant impact due to recession.
So, how is recession affecting your life? Would you categorize the issues any differently? I am curious to know if your life truly is recession-proof or not.
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It dose affect me... on work front.. Its a bad to walk into office and listen to ppl talking about the recession stuff, hear them say talk about the job, and how its been eating them. Consciously or not, the talk dose has its toll on me. adding to it there are some talks about revamping to cut the cost and not to loose the customers.
ReplyDeleteHowever i believe there are a coupe of thing that have gone good with the recession
1. we have started to understand that the our life and financial aspect is not alien to the atmosphere we live in. and that we need to build in fall back options. I have known ppl who live in there life pay cheque to pay cheque. This debacle has forced them to save. ppl who have been fired are now become reason to understand that one needs to have 2 to 3 months of earnings as savings, which should be in vault as a contingency.
2. Job market corrections, well I won’t be able to take a global view on this, however in India for the past few years there has been an surge of managers in a particular category. I call this as the farji managers; these are those ppl who have been hopping one org to another to jack up the pay package. At the end of the day these are those managers or ppl who have a high package which do not justified contribution they make to the org.
The basic economic principals are forgotten, commodity in demand will push the price upwards however the market fundamentals will sooner or later will push it down to the real value of the commodity--- the price cannot be artificially inflated. What’s happen gud is that the job market will get realistic
No one can say that a recession in the economy will not hurt them.
ReplyDelete1. Jobs ... Definitely no raise if your company makes it thru. Also increased work due to lay offs. No job security period.
2. Self Employed .. Longer time for receivables, lesser business. Cut backs ... the list is end less
3. commodities.. Lesser availability thus making no impact to their prices. How Lesser availability simple person or persons producing are bankrupt so nothing to produce. the only commodities that will see price drops will be ones where there is excess supply eg. Oil, Housing
4. Health .. Yep impact as people will skip going to the gym or let their membership go defunct
5. Family and Friends.. everyone is in the same boat .. the least one could do is provide moral support.
6. Dreams and Goals .. No change they remain the same though with a changed time frame.
So what in a nutshell ?? Doomsday ?? noway .. people and nations have survived worse crises by staying true to the human spirit. Should savings go up ?? if they do then a economy will not come out of the cycle. Savings rates need to remain the same and a sense of job security be brought back to the markets. Japan did bailouts in the 90's and their economy is still in the pits .. The US is repeating what the Japs did. They have to let some corps fail so that the economy can be built from scratch again
Wow .. Just realized that my comment almost has become a post on its own due to the length.. Well i could ramble on ..but will stop to get more comments in.
Regards
C