Doom and gloom

All has been pretty quiet at work really save for the occasional rumour about whose for the chop. Well all that changed on 18th December when we got an email saying there are going to be 72 job losses at our site after Christmas. The unions are starting talks on 5th December and then we find out. We have heard a rumour that 67 are shop floor workers and 5 professional staff. I know it sounds terrible and I feel guilty for thinking it - but I hope that's right. And I hope I'm not one of the five. Hubby is worried sick about it and its so frustrating that I can't make that better for him :(

On saying all that my heart goes out to all those who have been affected by the credit crunch and those who will be. I wonder what kind of Christmas there having this year *grabs tissues*.

Dreading going to work

Its Sunday evening and I'm dreading going to work tomorrow. I don't know how my employer will tell us that were being let go - it might be an email or a letter or maybe via a manager or something. The previous bad news came in an email. So needless to say I am wary of reading email now. I just want to go bury my head in the sand.

I feel like I'm going to my doom.

Worried

I just spoke to my mum on the phone. I emailed her yesterday and explained what had happened at work. I just couldn't tell her on the phone because I didn't want her to know how much I was panicking. Obviously she's not daft and she saw right through me. *rolls eyes*. She said they wouldn't see us hungry without a roof over our heads. I knew that already but still its reassuring to hear. Still feel sick with worry though.

The crunch has HIT right at home

Well yesterday we received some extremely worrying news. The company have announced 500 job losses worldwide within our company. An estimate is an average of 3.5% of professional grade employees at each site. The thing is we know that's just an average and that in reality there will be a disproportionate amount from our site (see earlier post about our group being hit hardest). We find out by 18th December (as we leave for Christmas shut down) and employment terminated on 31st December. We don't yet know exactly how they will do it and who will go as the management team were still in talks yesterday afternoon when we left. As I've mentioned before both me and my husband work for the same company so technically we could BOTH be unemployed in 2 weeks time.

Christmas is officially cancelled.

The crunch is hitting closer to home

Today we received an email from one of the big wigs explaining about the low sales in the company and explaining that our group has been hit the hardest in the whole company. It mentioned looking into project and people costs. That's worrying.

Union

I decided that it might be a good time to join the union at work as the credit crunch is forcing changes to our working conditions that I'm not overly happy with. Or more to the point I'm worried where things might lead. Anyway the rep had no forms so I couldn't join today. I'll have to see if there's any forms next week.

Insuring against the inevitable?

Today we insured ourselves against the inevitable. We bought some unemployment insurance that will pay the mortgage if we loose Andy's income. We no we can survive with my loss of income but Andy's loss of income would make it impossible. The policy has an exclusion period though and won't cover us if we find out about our job loss until February 2009. So we hope and pray that we don't.

Just as I thought.....

So just as I thought.......the credit crunch is starting to hit much closer to home.

A couple of weeks ago we begun a recruitment freeze at our company and then this week we found out that one of our plants abroad is now on a 3 day week. And now we have been forced to close the company (unpaid) for a week before Christmas presumably to reduce overheads. So with us both working for the same company it means we are effectively on a 4 day week. And then to cap it all they aren't paying overtime anymore so it seems were working it for free - hmmmmm. So that's about a third of my husband's income gone. Essentially we will be earning about 40% down on our income! So yeah things are hitting closer to home and those fears about losing the house are becoming more likely to be reality.

On the brighter side we have contacted a mortgage advisor to help us through the minefield that is re-mortgaging. We meet next Tuesday - lets hope they have somehting positive to say. Also, we are going to be taking out some unemplyment insurance. Its not cheap at £100 a month but it gives us the security that the mortgage and bills will be paid if we lose our jobs.

And on another bright side fuel prices are about 25p a litre cheaper then they were a few months ago - whoopeydoo. That more than makes up for the difficulty getting a mortgage and lower house prices right?

I need a crystal ball

So anyway I started this blog mainly because I have absolutely no idea how well we will ride out this storm that is the credit crunch. Hopefully we will remortgage easily enough and will both keep our jobs. Anything else after our health, home and job is kind of secondary. I'm not bothered about the car or the material things but I must admit I'm worried about the job.

I thought I'd use this post to explain a little more about our situation and the troubles we might experience along the way.

May 2007 we moved house (while house prices were practically at the highest they'd been) and took a high loan-to-value mortgage with Northern Rock - you know.....the ones who went bust. Now this wasn't a completely foolish decision because Northern Rock were highly recommended and nobody had a crystal ball to see that they'd go bust. the other reason is that although it was a high LTV mortgage (and therefore NR was one of only 2 banks who would lend to us) I was in my final year of university with excellent job prospects. So you could say it was a calculated risk. And then of course house prices started dropping which I wouldn't be to bothered about normally (unless I was selling of course) but we got a 2 years fixed rate on the mortgage and this needs renewing/changing next spring. I am guessing that by then we will be in negative equity so I'm concerned what will happen. We could possibly scrape together maybe £3-5K to fill a shortfall but then a fixed deal on top of that would be maybe anouther £1-2K as well. If we fail to remortgage then we end up staying with Northern Rock's standard variable rate - which we know will be hyper-inflated as they've already told us this.

When I left university I left with a £30K student loan (not bad for 5 years out of work) and £15K other credit (car etc). I've managed to shave nearly £10K off that in 18 months. I was hoping to be debt free (not counting the student loan) in the next 12 months but now A has lost his overtime and the mortgage will be going up ALOT in the spring when we remortgage.

And then of course we are worried about the jobs. I guess you could say we have all our eggs in one basket working for the same company. That's a little worrying to say the least, especially as I'm new to the company. The last time the company cut jobs they operated a last-in-first-out scheme. Yesterday I found out our company is having a recruitment freeze - the next step will be voluntary redundancies. The worrying thing is that with only 1 year experience I will find it hard to get another job. Now under normal circumstances we could manage for maybe a year or so with me out of work - we know this because we survived 5 years on A's salary while I was at university full time. The difference now though is that in order to move nearer to work we had to double the mortgage because its so expensive round here.

So God only who knows what will happen. But whatever he does I hope that we can ride the storm.

About me

I usually start off a blog with a quick "about me" post and this one is no different. So who am I? I'm a 33 year old married woman living in Yorkshire (UK). We are childfree and both work full time as engineers. My husband (A) graduated from university over 10 years ago and has been working for the same US-owned global company for about 10 years. I had a career change in 2002 and just graduated from university in 2007. I'm now working for the same company that my husband works for.