(serious) Research help needed, please

Baggybooks

I'm interested in learning how the recession has affected you - either in your work place, or your studies.

And from our older members who remember the 80's... are there any differences to this recession? Has experience given you an advantage?

Have any of you recently begun studies because of redundancy from another job? If so, why did you choose accountancy and to study AAT?

This is for an article themed on accountancy within industry.

Please either post here or send me a PM...

LondonMatt

I don't think it has effected me - yet. I got a new job and a pay rise in the recession. Although I am now also getting the boot, that would have happened recession or not.

I'll have to wait and see whether I'll be able to get a decent job in a couple of months, but I'm hopeful :001_smile:

Baggybooks

Do you work in industry?

Bookworm55

As a graduand, I've found it very difficult to get a job in this climate.

According to my uni's careers service, while vacancies in accounting firms have dropped sharply many have found that applications are down disproportionately. So we're having employers lacking good candidates and candidates unaware of good employers. Perhaps people are assuming there are fewer jobs than they are and are just not applying?

A highly unscientific straw poll of my friends who will also be graduating next month revealed that for every one who has secured a graduate level position, there is one who is taking their part-time (not graduate level) job full-time and two or three who have no job to go in to.

EDIT: But you're talking about industry rather than practice. I don't know anyone who has secured an industry accounting-related job. I'll be heading down to the recruitment agencies at the start of next week though, as that's what I've decided to do. (Concentrate on the industry and CIMA side. I spent a little while talking to a CIMA past president, and he seemed broadly optimistic)

LondonMatt

Baggybooks wrote: »

Do you work in industry?

No. :blushing:

My first serious reply to a chat thread and I make a fool of myself :001_rolleyes:

Baggybooks

Thanks...!

Esme

I work as an Assistant Accountant in the motor industry, which has been hugely affected by the recession. My actual job hasn't been effected hugely, apart from having our quarterly bonuses scrapped for the time being :thumbdown:

Baggybooks

Are bonuses linked to the manufacturing output (therefore out of your control), or other factors?

Esme

Mostly out of our control unfortunately

blobbyh

Hi Helen,

Hope you are well?

As some of you may already know, I work for a high end recruitment agency and any one of us here can tell you this recession has been dreadful. From a company going through rapid expansion less than a year ago, we are now half the size we were last October, going from around eighty plus staff to now just over forty. While it's obvious to say that the non-performers have been let go, it's also clear that the current quality of staff, both internally for ourselves and externally for our clients, isn't up to scratch. Without meaning to be political, the UK graduate culture over the last ten years has meant many people with degrees having high salary expectations without any experience. Some of the industries where this didn't often matter, IT and design, are now fewer due to the recession and the availability of genuine quality, more academically skilled people has also declined as seemingly less British people now want to study/work in our core markets such as finance, accountancy, electronics etc. Much of our turnover now comes from abroad as the UK talent pool seems to be ever shrinking in our operative sectors. Good news for those wishing to study & work in these areas, bad news for the UK as a whole as the rest of us have to support those people with unwanted, soft degrees who won't consider other work.

I wasn't in accountancy for previous recessions but from speaking to those who were (and working in the recruitment industry) this is by far the worst crisis ever. Luckily I got into accounts four years ago having retrained but I don't envy those now trying to get finance related roles without experience.

Baggybooks

I'm very good, thanks.

Thanks for that post, it'll give me some interesting informal quotes.

mark130273

recession f*cked me as lost my job and cant find one. and since im GOING to pass my final two exams.... going to be a qualified tech which no job ?

PAMDILL

I left school in the middle of the recession in the 80's and spent 4 years on the dole doing various part time, short term jobs, various training schemes. I had too low grades in highers etc. for uni and too many for most jobs. If I had heard once I had heard 100 times 'you are too young, you are too old, you are too qualified, you are not qualified enough'

This time around I am in a job but in the construction industry:- we have had to let over half our workforce go, we had 2 contracts due to start late last year which have since had either funding pulled or had planning problems. Both should now be due to start again.

It is really touch and go though. If they don't go ahead shortly then nightmare.

Nearly every company I speak to are in the same boat, a few subcontractors locally have gone to the wall as bigger companies have squeezed cashflow.

Oddly some builder merchants have kept busy, in fact one or two have been busier than usual.

blobbyh

The cashflow situation is crippling everyone. Some of our best clients are well known, international banks whose current and abusive payment policy seems to be to never pay within terms while querying every invoice for as long as they can until they're almost on the verge of facing legal action.

Before this, we operated a fair payment policy towards our suppliers, however as a result of the omnipresent cash contraction is, I've now been asked to introduce an unethical policy of not paying anyone within terms, be they Monster.co.uk or the local window cleaner. Employment-wise, I realise why we have to do it to keep ourselves in business but the moral issue is another thing.

For us, one of the most laughable things of the recession is we're having to safeguard our own money in the same banks who aren't paying us for some of the services we're providing to them! Crazy...

CJC

PAMDILL wrote: »

I left school in the middle of the recession in the 80's and spent 4 years on the dole doing various part time, short term jobs, various training schemes.

I had a similar experience on leaving uni in the mid 80's. I spent a year in and out of low level work before running back into academia where stayed as a student and then as a researcher for the next ten years.

Some against my expectations, I've not been hit by the current downturn that much. Largely, I think because I have lots of small contracts - none of my clients pay a lot but I have enough of them that I can afford to lose several before I'll start feeling the pinch. I've had to renegotiate a few contacts so that clients pay less and get less from me but that's not always a bad thing - I can halve my fee while doing a quarter of the work.

My core income has always come from website maintenance and administration and that has stayed pretty stable. Contracts for creating new websites have dried up and though these proved lucrative in the past, were never a big part of my business anyway.

I get the feeling that people who've had websites for a while appreciate that they do help create business and are not a luxury and that someone like me actually represent pretty good value for money - at least,that's what I keep telling my customers.

Baggybooks

Thanks all!

columbia

Hi

I was made redundant at the end of April. It wasn't just me, the whole company is closing. We were a manufacturer of leather goods to the main fashion shops, however they were always putting the squeeze on us price wise and some ended up going direct to China/India as it was cheaper.

The thing that did it for us was 2 very large high street chains who both bought a lot of items from us then went into liquidation almost immediately. It's near on impossible to get your money/goods back and it signalled the end for all of our jobs. Whats most annoying is that they have started back up again under new names - it's a joke really that they can get away with it.

I have tried going self-employed, but no-one is biting at the moment, and I cannot claim as I was self-employed a couple of years ago and my Class 2 contributions do not entitle me to any money now!

Situation extremely dire........... Although, 3 interviews next week (they are not ideal but better than nothing).

Baggybooks

Thanks Columbia and good luck with the interviews.

blobbyh

Well, we all know it was a massive shock when Woolworths went and I can't remember any large chain that visible going bust in my memory. The collapse of Zavvi (formerly Virgin Megastores) was a surprise too but maybe not so much when you found out they owed Woolies £106m for unpaid stock (Woolies administrators eventually accepted £40m). According to Wiki, "Zavvi had been trading well, prior to the collapse of Woolworths in November". Well, that's barely surprising if you're not paying core suppliers for the stock you're selling...

Zavvi was always packed whenever I used to go in there so kinda makes you wonder where the money was going?

Sorry, Helen, went off topic there!

columbia

Thanks Baggy!

blobbyh

And good luck from me too, Tracey!

Baggybooks

blobbyh wrote: »

Sorry, Helen, went off topic there!

Makes note in diary: Rob apologises.

:001_rolleyes:

columbia

Cheers Robert!