iaink

In addition to that Rona are offering 5% back in vouchers on money spent there on major projects too....
https://www.ronadvantage.com/advanta...ex.jsp?lang=en

MarkG

Obama's going to have to start printing money soon because he probably can't fund all those bailouts with borrowed cash and, if he does, it will only make the economy worse by taking money from productive companies and giving it to bankrupts. When that happens, life will become... interesting.

ExKiwilass

Happily, Canadian banks have not failed and we don't have a subprime crisis like the UK and the US. But yes it is hitting.

It hasn't hit us personally yet in BC but it's def. starting to hit friends. recruitment friend (legal) says his business has dropped by a third. Law firms aren't hiring and are more likely to fire. The industry we're in is feast or famine anyway, more famine lately so it's kinda same old same old for us.

Canwest has been in trouble for a long time, for the same reason US networks are struggling and Murdoch';s papers are losing money - the internet. Also, their major advertising is the automobile industry, and we all know what's happening there. The recession has just brought it to the surface.

I know of people planning to move from Ontario to BC to look for work, so it seems like it's hitting worse there so far than it has here.

Steve_P

Steve bites tongue.

wbexpat

hey mark hows it going.

looks like a few people jumped the gun when they were openly mocking cgnao eh?
100% guaranteed!

adren

MarkG

Well, he still has time to be wrong . But with the colossal collapse in credit I can't see that governments have much choice other than to print money and throw it out of helicopters in an attempt to inflate away the debts... though what the actual effect will be is another question entirely.

wbexpat

oh i dunno. lehmann gone. bear gone. freddie/fannie torn asunder. AIG, gm & chrysler wobbling...

dow has lost 39% in 6 months. Worst (but only just) performance since the depression (45% in 6 months) and theres a long way to go yet.

i agree shovelling money out of helicopters to inflate away the debt is probably the only palatable option, along with radical regulation. what makes me mad is that it was all foreseen. if you me and a bunch of other crackpots on a little uk website were predicting this in 2004 then i dont believe someone "in power" hadnt.

or maybe they did and the sequence of rate increases 2005-2007 were their way of putting a bullet into it.


edit:
lets just hope prop3rtyguru stuck all his _alleged_ BTL cash into wall street...

Madmac

Handy to know as we're looking at doing the basement.........sometime. Ta.

Steve - you drink Timmies and therefore have no need of tastebuds so bite down harder.

Steve_P

But I don't drink Timmies.

Remember my coffee of choice?

You were even more horrified than if I did drink Timmies.

Emmjay

I am about a year or so from getting my visa via the old skilled worker route, if all goes well.

What advice would anyone give now with the recession being what it is?

I am in a stable and secure job in UK (i work for the NHS), which is about as stable as you get. I sold my house just before prices went down too much and now rent until visa comes through, so i do not have any debt.

I am now wondering whether I should still go ahead and get my visa and land and then come back to UK and ride this recession out, as i know PR can be kept if you stay 2 out of 5 years - so this will give me time to see how things look in a year or so and see if the recession will get better or end. We have all seen recessions come and go before sooo.

What are everyone's thoughts please.

Emmjay

dbd33

The nurse's union is currently running an advertising campaign in Ontatio seeking to draw attention to the nursing staff cuts in hospitals here. Even that job is no longer safe. I think you have to consider staying in the safe job you have but, since you have another year before anything can happen, there's no need to decide yet. Wait and see.

paolosmythe

with all things considered, i suspect there is an effort of 'bull5hit baffles brains' to afford some optimism.

gawd knows people are as impatient as they are generally risk averse.... and so whilst people are being careful to count their pennies at the moment, this isn't likely to carry on for long.

perhaps with this in mind, i read there are headlines that the recruitment stall / job loss situation in the UK is expected to reverse over the next month, whilst in Canada, the worst is due to have passed by June!

yay summer and optimism... let's go out and buy new cars!

el_richo

I'm curious as to whether we'll see an impact similar to mass selling of stocks on the markets whereby they're generally oversold in the panic leading to a rush to buy back.

Another thing i'm curious about is the point of which employers realise the upturn is in progress and the fight to build employees begins. The company i work for (luckily stong foundations) has an impressive knowledge base and is only looking to reduce as a last resort. Must be a nightmare for lots of companies to realise they need to spend more money on training new people, recruiting, etc etc.

Hopefully some stability will be in effect by the time i look to move.

Rich

paolosmythe

what seems to be the case (in canada at least) is that rather than making redundancies, companies have put into place, hiring freezes, (in addition to pay rise freezes / hour reductions,) whilst trying to increase / sustain other 'incentives' which are more affordable. (this is only what i have read; personal experiences of those in here might be quite different.)

effectively there is the long term recognition that things will improve, but this is having to be managed in the interim through cost saving measures just to sustain survival!

and of course there is also the resource of temporary workers who can be trained at a lower rate of salary, (with the company making a lesser commitment to such workers than permanent staff,) who when things improve, will seize the chance of long term, permanent offers of employ.

it is said that opportunity lies in adversity and i fear that one opportunity is to turn things into an 'employer's market'. (we might end up wishing we could have 10 days annual leave per year!)

Mike Gas

No offence intended but talk about heads in the sand.
Ware do you read that UK employment rate is going to grow from next month?


Office for National Statistics UK: Labour market statistics
There has been a fall in both the number of people in employment and the employment rate. The number of unemployed people, the unemployment rate and the claimant count have all increased. The number of inactive people of working age and the inactivity rate have fallen. The number of vacancies has fallen. Growth in average earnings, both including and excluding bonuses is unchanged. In the latest reference period the working age employment rate was 74.1 per cent, down 0.3 percentage points from the previous quarter. The number of people in employment decreased by 45,000 over the quarter. The unemployment rate was 6.3 per cent, up 0.4 percentage points from the previous quarter. The number of unemployed people increased by 146,000 over the quarter. The claimant count was 1.23 million...


The US entered into problems well over two years ago and there unemployment rate is growing at its fastest rate since the 1930 and is predicted to accelerate.

In Canada the problems have only just started to surface what is predicted to be the worse recession / probably depression for over one hundred years unemployment has only just started to rise probably have at least two years of declines to come if we are lucky.

People can NOT get credit in Canada now and this is going to get worse they will have no choice but to be careful.
And you wait until interest rates rise at an alarming rate to pay for all the bail outs yes a lot worse in UK and the USA.
I don’t think this is pessimistic but more likely realistic.