Deepening the Downturn
Apr 18th, 2008 at 6:28 am by Susie
And there’s the other side of the same coin - after layoffs, workers are “offered” overtime to pick up the slack. (”Offered” as in, do this or you’re in the next wave of layoffs.) I know a couple of people who have been working 50-60 hour weeks for months:
Not long ago, overtime was a regular feature at the Ludowici Roof Tile factory in eastern Ohio. Not anymore. With orders scarce and crates of unsold tiles piling up across the yard, the company has slowed production and cut working hours, sowing worry and thrift among its workers.
Kim Baker works at a roof tile factory with declining business. “We don’t just hop in the car and go shopping or get something to eat,” he said, with his daughter Bailey and wife, Debbie, right.
“We don’t just hop in the car and go shopping or get something to eat,” said Kim Baker, whose take-home pay at the plant has recently dropped to $450 a week, from more than $600. “You’ve got to watch everything. If we go to town now, it’s for a reason.”
Throughout the country, businesses grappling with declining fortunes are cutting hours for those on their payrolls. Self-employed people are suffering a drop in demand for their services, like music lessons, catering and management consulting. Growing numbers of people are settling for part-time work out of a failure to secure a full-time position.
The gradual erosion of the paycheck has become a stealth force driving the American economic downturn. Most of the attention has focused on the loss of jobs and the risk of layoffs. But the less-noticeable shrinking of hours and pay for millions of workers around the country appears to be a bigger contributor to the decline, which has already spread from housing and finance to other important areas of the economy.
While official unemployment has risen only modestly, to 5.1 percent, the reduction of wages and working hours for those still employed has become a primary cause of distress, pushing many more Americans into a downward spiral, economists say.
I work as a cashier in a major chain supermarket. (Why I am working there part-time for minimum wage at the age of 57 with two Master’s degrees is a long story.)
Anyway, I like to work the express line (15 items or less for those who bother to read the sign) because you can see out the window from there. I haven’t actually done the math, but my guess is that the average express line total is up to $45 or so. Even the rich people who lay down their steaks, wine, sushi and asparagus are starting to flinch a little bit when I hit “Total”; for them the bill is more like $95.
This store also has a fuel center to sell gas to the people, and all I heard yesterday was how gas had gone up 15 cents from the night before.
Last night from 5:00 pm to 6:00pm when we are usually smashed with the “going home from work” crowd, there were noticeably fewer customers in the store. Something is going on, and it has started to bite in the last month, since Easter.
I know all about this, I went from a nice paying job in a hospital business office to my first ever retail job. Now most weeks my take home pay is a third or less of what it had been. There has been only one week where I took home what I use to. But I’m partly dependent on commission and since sales have been sucking that doesn’t help.
I’m selling mattresses and rugs which are for most people are a purchase they will defer until later if at all. So it’s hoping every day for a stroke of luck or someone replacing everything lost in a fire.