A global recession is on the horizon - please read OP for mod warning

El Gato De Negocios

In my home town there is a smallish retail park. In the last 6 weeks Halfords and Homebase have both shut up shop. Now argos is closing. Prior to that Carphone Warehouse closed. That's probably at least 30 jobs gone in the space of little over a month, low paid and "low skilled" roles, its not like Dublin where there are oodles of retail outlets. Most of these people will probably end up on social welfare, at least in the short term. It's only the beginning imo, rising inflation, rising council tax / rates, rising energy costs, small towns are going to be decimated.

brickster69

Online retailer Wayfair laying off 10% of it's global staff.

https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1616408345992204296

Cluedo Monopoly

Big Tech fell over themselves hiring new employees during Covid. Wage inflation to attract talent has made the ICT budgets excessive. I think they will all downsize especially in USA. However the tech sector will remain strong in Ireland and elsewhere. It's a correction rather than a recession. I hear the severance packages are very generous.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120134025#Comment_120134025

It's a lot less costly to reduce headcount in the US (thanks in no small part to their at will employment laws) than it is in EU. This may factor in to decision making. US wages tend to be higher than Ireland/EU which in turn are higher than the likes of India. So to make the biggest bang for your buck it makes sense to trim headcount in the US and shift to India. We are seeing this happen a lot right now, look at all the MNC layoffs, a lot are US centered - and result in that same company opening "new" roles in India.

mike_cork

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120133824#Comment_120133824

Yeah same stuff happening in Cork city at the moment. Several businesses closing or have announced upcoming closure. One of the local pub groups announced yesterday that 20% of staff are being made redundant (30+ jobs)- https://www.corkbeo.ie/news/local-news/over-30-reardens-oliver-plunkett-26020475

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120134043#Comment_120134043

Yep it's always the way. US employee costs are around twice that of Ireland or they were a few years ago. That factors in all costs including salary e.g. office space, lighting, pension etc. The US employee costs would be 10+ times those in India. The good thing for us is that we act as the bridge between USA and India. Many "US MNCs" actually have more employees abroad than in USA.

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120133824#Comment_120133824

Most physical retail shops have no future. Covid significantly improved the online ordering experience. That will continue and the number of physical retail shops will decrease to a fraction of the current.

Ozark707

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120134025#Comment_120134025

The problem is that when a company starts a downsizing they close up a lot of open roles, it is hard to sell it to your staff if you are letting people go at the same time. As Google/MS/Amz.... are all in downsizing mode now so the amount of places you can go will be down considerably unfortunately.

mike_cork

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120133844#Comment_120133844

These guys have a large base in Galway i think?

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120134093#Comment_120134093

In tech, US salaries alone are about twice the Irish salary, never mind any of the other costs. You can pretty much hire 2 people in Ireland for the same cost as hiring 1 in the US.

On top of this, laying people off here (and in Europe in general) is slow and expensive, while laying off in the US is relatively quick and cheap.

There's a piece in the journal this morning suggesting the Microsoft layoffs in Ireland will be less than 100. They have like 3500 people here according to the article, so that's about 2.8% reduction. With the reduction being 5% globally, Ireland appears to be doing ok on that one if the numbers are accurate.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120134351#Comment_120134351

Yep agreed. The USA headcount will take the bulk of the hit in these situations. The employment laws here drive the US senior managers round the bend but our cheaper rates and committed workforce trump all their frustrations. These companies are still making ginormous profits so they could well be using the slowdown to "trim the fat".

brickster69

Japan's inflation reaches a 40 year high today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64341733

Frank Bullitt

It looks like the bigger tech companies will have more waves of layoffs over the next while from the looks of things.

PokeHerKing

My place have extended their hiring freeze to contractors. Curbed all travel and in general are starting to cry poverty.

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120135764#Comment_120135764

Wait till you see how every company cries poverty in the near future due to macro economic uncertainty the usual blah blah blah.

Every company will use this as a way to suppress wage growth and be able to tell employees that they are lucky "to have a job".

Fine Day

Was chatting a pipe fitter this week whom works for a well known engineering company that do all big factory work. He was telling me that if he puts a name forward for a fitter and they get hired then he gets a €1500 euro bonus. Must be no slow down in the manufacturing sector as they have loads of work on.

screamer

US is overpaid and sorry to say but any company that I worked for( it companies) , the US based teams would return half the productivity of their Irish counterparts…. For double the cost. So 4 times more expensive. We’re not immune here as we could see outsourcing to other European countries with cheaper cost bases, but I think the shine has gone off India as a base too.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120136497#Comment_120136497

I can't agree with that. I alway found Americans had a good work ethic and were highly capable. Double the cost yes but they were more than a match for Irish employees. They had to be on their toes too or they were shown the door.

patnor1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120134118#Comment_120134118

Online ordering experience is something like this...

You see shoes, you click and buy. Wait a day or few (or even longer) and when it come try to be at home otherwise you will be heading to collect at depot. Then pray that it is the shoe you ordered and colour match your screen settings. Try it on and hope it fits. If you are lucky then you got your new shoes. If you are not lucky and they sent wrong item, colour does not match or quality does not seems allright, wrong size or simply not comfortable fit and you are off to pack it and order return label. Wait for collection or drop it off to depot. Wait for refund...

Thank you but while online shopping is good for some things it is a disaster for many other. Nothing beats real experience when you can see, handle and try stuff before you buy it. Oh and when you do buy it you own it that instant.

Mr. teddywinkles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120137282#Comment_120137282

The only thing I'd disagree with you on this is if ya can get it cheaper online. I usual get hands on and if I like product on the shopfloor I research online to see if same product can be ordered cheaper. Footwear I think should always be bought in shop anyways just for fit. Nothing worse than wearing crap fitting shoes.

Deub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120137282#Comment_120137282

If online ordering experience was the description you gave, online companies wouldn’t have grown so quickly in the last decade.

oceanman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120137282#Comment_120137282

dosent seem to be affecting the huge surge in online shopping though!

seenitall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120137992#Comment_120137992

Well, a healthy percentage of stuff bought online is not clothes, where the right fit is so important. Almost anything else, it’s much easier to order online and have the peace of mind that you will be getting exactly what you ordered and that it will fulfill the purpose you ordered it for. I got burned a couple of times with buying clothes online and I’ve stopped doing it, as to me, it’s not worth the hassle.

But even so, lots of people are unlike me and are so into online shopping that they don’t mind the hassle with returns etc. I mean they mind, but they still do it, as clicking and acquiring is so addictive. I’d bet there is a lot to unpack (excuse the pun) in the psychology of online shopping.

road_high

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120133824#Comment_120133824

Where is this?

Deub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120136609#Comment_120136609

I’ve read several times that an US employee cost twice compared an Irish one but on what is it based? Salary only or the overall cost (employer cost + salary)?

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120134645#Comment_120134645

Not all that difficult, Japan hasn't had meaningful inflation in about 30 years. Their central bank couldn't buy inflation in all that time and consistently undershot targets, so a 4 percent inflation rate is probably a bit of good news for them strangely.

SortingYouOut

https://web.archive.org/web/20230121110303/https%3A//www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/01/21/drop-in-living-standards-unavoidable-department-of-finance-says/

IT article this morning. Headline is more gloomier than the read itself, but still an acknowledgement of our reliance on the MNC's.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120138525#Comment_120138525

I saw some stats on it a few years ago in a US MNC. They took everything into account including office costs, lighting/heating, insurance etc. There was a 2:1 ratio. The average was something like 150k/75k USD.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120138525#Comment_120138525

Salary alone would be roughly double. But this is offset by things like non-existent job security.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120136497#Comment_120136497

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120136609#Comment_120136609

The issue is that because the job market is so crazy the MNCs have to work to retain talent. What this ultimately means is people are getting promoted much faster than they otherwise would in a normal market, and so are getting higher salaries earlier than they otherwise would in a normal market.