BECCY.FR

can anyone tell me if they are finding it increasingly difficult to find work if they are self employed?my oh is a reg electrician but since probably the middle of last year he hasn't had a thing,is everyone one waiting for the exchange rate to change or are people just not coming to france any more.either way we need to know soon or it will be too late for us,just another small enterprise shutting down!any one else out there in the same boat?would love to know

Nibbler

is it red or black....
black or red.....
over to you..
who knows..!!

BECCY.FR

either or ,makes no difference, nobody is spending!

G-J-B

I'm self-employed, but mine is a different kettle of fish. I've never been a big earner, but have always made enough to get by on, and each day, week, month is unpredictable. I'm stung too by the exchange rate, and am forced to convert sterling to euros (at this very second I'm trying to hold that off for a month or two in the hope the rate go back to at least 1.12 to the euro.

Sorry to hear your other half is struggling. Purse strings are tightening, and sometimes it's important to come up with new ideas or angles to adapt and evolve to such times.

Roger O

From the above, sounds as if you are working only for British customers? What about work for the local French - is there nothing going there? I mean, registered in France with a SIRET you are as good as a local electrician - just depends on service and prices from then on??

BECCY.FR

point taken Roger,unfortunately work has gotten tight for the french artisan as well , it's surprizing how much money has been coming in to france via the british banks over exuberance!

le plumber

Things are very quiet - Today I was told by a third party that a tiler friend/collegue of mine had shut up shop. Since the beginning of the year he is the 6th person that I know of who has "posé le bilan". He won't be the last either as I know of others who are feeling the squeeze....
I don't aggree that its a case of service or prices - and there is no point cutting prices anyway because you wont survive for long.

Roger O

I didn't mean "cut price stuff" but to give competative ones with the locals (assume that already) and make sure the rest is better (the French artisans, for example are notorious for not coming on an arranged date - or being late when they do). Of course, like everything else there are exceptions to that to.. Best is by word of mouth .. if you've done jobs for people and they enthuse about your work, politeness, quality etc to their friends and neighbours.. it gets around very fast.

Course, if you live in a small village with local competition in the "family" it's much harder.

Having said all that (which is fairly obvious anyway), I agree hard times are on us and people will wait as long as possible to get "that job done" even if it would normally be "an emergency". Incredible that 12% more (mostly French) people this year are getting handouts from the Resto du Coeur because they just can't make ends meet any more.

Bon courage!!
Roger

PS By the way putting up cards offering to work in local stores, doctors hairdressers, mairie, etc also gets bites sometimes - especially doctors where bored people in waiting rooms read notice boards!
That's how we found a guy to do some garden work for us which is too heavy for poor old retired me!!

le plumber

Don't worry Roger I wasn't having a go!! I was talking about undercutting the price of a job.

For example, (what gets on my wick), is that today in the construction trade the customer will always take the cheapest quote, and I can tell you that whats happening is that larger companys are undercutting the prices of smaller companies in order to survive. However the larger companies still need to keep a healthy margin, so the job ends up nearly always badly done because they are force to do a rushed job.
A year or two later on, when that "bodged rushed job" will need re-doing, the local artisan will be out of buisness so the customer will be forced to turn to the larger company who, knowing they don't have the competion of a local artisan anymore, will charge the prices they want.
I'm speaking from experience as its happing to me and others, who have tried to undercut the larger companies but then realise they can't afford to keep the buisness open.
Anyway its nothing new - look at bakeries and the hypermarkets. Supermarkets opened up bakeries in their store whiched produced good enough bread at a very reasonable price so everybody went to the supermarket to get their bageutte. The local village baker goes out of buisness, and the supermarket starts making poor quality bread but at the same price. Now when you buy bread, your lucky if its not stale by lunchtime.
In the end its the customer who complains that its impossible to find a good baguette, which actually tastes of real bread, but what they don't realise is that its people like them who put the village baker out of buisness in the firstplace!
Anyway, I'll get off my soap box before I fall off it!!

Roger O

I agree 100%!! from an honest supplier, one gets the high quality one pays for!!
In the end it's a win win situation!