Economic Downturn Has Finally Arrived!!

[Marilyn]

Well, we were doing pretty good down here until very recently. My business is still good because we are shipping orders we've already sold, and should remain good for 2 more months. After that, who knows!!

I'm on the board of our local subsection of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. We had a luncheon today which is very unusual. Normally we have evening meetings with an agenda. Our president called the meeting, as I learned today, so that we could all exchange personal e-mail addresses and have a meeting together before some of the board members move on to other jobs. It seems that the plants in the area are beginning to announce lay-offs. Our subsection president is the first casualty that I know personally. He will probably be moving to Corpus Christi, but isn't sure yet. A lady in the group is one of 12 engineers in a mechanical reliability group, 3 of the 12 are leaving, and she's afraid she may be one of them. She's, I'm pretty sure, a single mom and is from South America with teen aged children and only received her degree recently and thought she had a secure job. Others may be forced to take early retirement. One of the companies (they have 3 plants in my territory) is laying off 20% of their employees. Another company has reduced all contractors to 32 hours a week. It's getting crazy out there.

Work we were planning to sell valves for has been postponed until we don't know when. My job should be secure. My income, however, will be greatly affected. I'm salary plus commission. My salary is good, so we will be okay, but commission is a big part of my total pay, so this could be a big cut.

If one of the big 3 automakers goes under, we will all be in trouble. So many of the plants' production is the raw form of plastics, polyethylene, polypropylene and PVC. Think of all the plastics in cars. Downturn in construction is already hitting us. Think of all the PVC pipe in subdivision development, housing and commercial construction, and all the plastics coating wiring and cables for transmission of electricity.

We've been through times like this before, but this looks worse than ever before, and we are being told will probably last longer than before.

Our company has in the past had employees take an across the board 10 percent cut in pay rather than laying anyone off. Just hope if things get bad that they will do this again. We are a good team and are willing to sacrifice if necessary to keep our coworkers employed. However, we're not publicly traded anymore, and are owned by private investors, so it's a completely different set of leaders.

What a mess!!!!! We all need to be praying for our nation and our world that not too many people suffer because of this. Hate to be negative, but I'm afraid it's going to get much worse before it gets better.