New Job

I start my new job pretty soon. I feel fortunate and lucky to have found another employment opportunity in this economy.

U.S unemployment rate is about 10% while unemployment in the Tampa bay area is about 11%.

am saying a small prayer to those who are unemployed and pray that you'll soon be gainfully employed and thriving again!

Update #2 - Job Offer

I accepted the employment opportunity with the new firm.
I feel extremely lucky to have found another job within 1 month of being laid off.

The last time I was laid off(~ 2001/2002) it took me about 3 months to find another job but I did not have enough savings and it caused lot of heart-ache.

Update - Job Offer

The firm did not warm up to my counter proposal but instead agreed to raise their offer slightly...
This means I would be accepting a position that pays me about 20% less than what I made like 2 weeks ago but hey, glad to have a job in this recession.

I hope to recharge my batteries in the next 2-3 weeks and get back to paying down my mortgage.

Being debt-free(completely) has even more greater priority on my list after being laid off...

Initial thoughts after being laid-off:

1. How am I gonna pay all the bills?
2. How am I gonna continue to pay down my mortgage?
3. NOT, how am I gonna contribute to my 401K or Roth IRA or otherwise...

Received Job Offer

Received a verbal job offer today and its about 25k less than what I make.

Considering the state of the U.S economy, I wasn't surprised but what surprised me was that higher cost of living places such as D.C, Virginia, Boston etc were offering lower salaries comparatively.

I can't fathom anyone would want to re-locate with lower pay!

I made a counter job offer proposal(which will bring the difference down from 25k to 15k) and am hoping it'll come through.

Update on Job Hunt

• Employers are low-balling salary offers.(I was offered 30% less than what am making currently and am NOT taking it)
• Interviews are becoming rare and rare.(I have had only two interviews so far)
• More phone interviews than personal interviews
• I noticed they have atleast 100 resumes for 1 position.

Job Hunt Mode

Its been few days since I've been laid off.

The company I work for gave me 2 weeks of severance pay for every year that I've worked for and I'll survive for another month or so before having to dip into my savings.

Am not unhappy about this(layoff) but merely trying to get a grip on how companies treat workers in the U.S.
So called Capitalism cannot or does not want to reward employees who worked hard but now are losing their jobs yet doesn't blink while rewarding sky-high salaries and perks for CEOs.

I'll tell you what. I'll name my employer. Its CEO made it to the top 15 pharma companies who shelled out ridiculous amount of money to keep him on its payroll.

Top 15 Big Pharma Paychecks of 2008:

1. Bill Weldon - Johnson & Johnson - $29.4M

2. Miles White - Abbott Laboratories - $28.3M

3. Bernard Poussot - Wyeth - $25M

4. Jim Cornelius - Bristol-Myers Squibb - $25M

5. Richard Clark - Merck - $19.9M

6. Robert Parkinson - Baxter International - $16M

7. David Vasella - Novartis - $15.1M

8. Jeffrey Kindler - Pfizer - $14.8M

9. Frank Baldino - Cephalon - $14.5M

10. John Lechleiter - Eli Lilly - $13M

11. Fred Hassan - Schering-Plough $12.9M

12. Robert Coury - Mylan $12.5M

13. Werner Wenning - Bayer - $4.8M

14. David Brennan - AstraZeneca - $4.7M

15. Severin Schwan - Roche - $4.5M

Laid-off at work

Economy takes its toll. Another casualty will soon be in the unemployment line.

I have been laid off today.

I will likely assess my financial situation and be in the job-hunt mode for the next couple of weeks(or even months).

Down-Sizing at Work

I have been notified at work to expect to be laid-off in the next 2 weeks.

Anyone going thro' layoffs should know what's a WARN act.

WARN stands for Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification and this has come handy to me and I consider lucky because of regulation '20 CFR639.639.2'

Click Here.

This development will greatly impact my goal of paying down my mortgage substantially this year.

I have decided NOT to sell my ESPP holdings(contrary to my earlier posting) as this might serve as my Emergency fund.

Recession hits work!

TODAY, about 17 contractors at work were let-go...most of the projects are either being cancelled or curtailed or simply being mothballed.

I think pretty soon my job will be on the line!

I quickly scanned thro' most of the online job sites and found that there were 0 positions posted for what I do currently....depressing...

I have decided to sell my ESPP(employee stock purchase plan) holdings in early May to pay off the credit card debt but its disheartening knowing that the ESPP was supposed to be an emergency fund but considering I may not be employed the coming weeks, its prudent to lighten your debt burden!!!

Update: 04/27/2009 : Several more contractors were let go today as well...