P-Jay, interesting view above but I don't agree.
There is now a realisation that another coronavirus could come winging out of bat world at any time and be equally (or more) damaging.
Reliance on vaccine development is fundamentally wrong as there is no sign of successful development - yet; wishful thinking won't get us very far.
Unless and until we have a vaccine we will be reliant on behavioural changes.
You appear to not accept the prospect of economic disaster; all the indicators point towards exactly that result.
What gives you cause for economic optimism?
Sex workers…
Not too bad if you're in Kyle Walker's neck of the woods.
jezzasnr
MemberSex workers…
I guess on-line side of things is doing ok.
Apparently not... Too many performers, not enough audience, so earnings have dropped and people are feeling more pushed into activities they'd not have done before.
But also, people have been pushed from the relatively "invisible" side, strip clubs etc, where there's relatively little chance of being recognised and of having pictures/videos spread, to the internet where everything is remembered and recorded.
It's a different sort of problem to people losing businesses and homes of course
Apparently not… Too many performers, not enough audience
Apparently not… Too many performers, not enough audience, wife at home! 🙂
Back on topic - I work in the print trade dealing with small businesses mainly and I can't recall speaking to one customer over the last few months who has any clue as to what the next 6 months/year hold. They are working on hope that the grants and furlough money they've received will tide them over but I know a lot will close as they can't make it pay under the 'new normal'.
I hope @avdave is going to be OK. International scientific and and medical conferences have disappeared. I just attended a summary of a virtual ASCO (Oncology). We are considering options for later this year but have been told not to book (for October - was my planned annual holiday too) and planning one for next year, but even that may be virtual.
Aviation is a terrible place at the moment. Son2 has just secured a training place to start commercial pilot training, but who knows what the market will be in two years? Son1 will spend next year as a graduate teaching assistant.
Efficiency always sounds good on paper, but it just means doing more with less and that means less labour, fewer jobs to create the same amount of product.
Yes but then those people find work doing something else. We could ban tractors, and pay thousands of people to drag ploughs through fields but that wouldn't be good. If we're inefficient we tie up more people doing fewer things, which means we progress less. And before you complain about progress, that'll be fewer people doing stuff like building wind turbines, solar panels and medical machines as well as the inconsequential stuff.
Anyway, further to what Alpin said about events - I wonder if demand in the events/arts sector will end up being permanently suppressed. I mean if no-one does events, no-one will get a competitive advantage by doing them, so they'll just stop.
Local newspaper publisher.
It is not fun but we have been told we are un-needed and 'dead tree press' for so long you begin to ignore the noise as business keeps ticking along. Our problem is when the advertisers who pay the bills start to be unable to afford to advertise. And we cant drop prices as Mr Printer has his bills to pay.
We haven't seen any big boost in local businesses. Many are talking things up in terms of ads but we shall see how that works out.
Hopefully the boost in cycling will help STW. Or else that has been the entire years sales done in 3 months.
I'm closing two side businesses of mine that were just starting to show signs of taking off.
Anyone want to buy some decent camera gear? 🙁
If you work in any of the creative industries in this country then you’re ****ed, basically.
I’m a freelance designer, and us freelancers, which is the main form of employment in most creative industries, have had no access to any of the government schemes. We’re on our own.
There are 3 million of us who’ve had no income since March, and no sign of any work any time soon.
Good article in today’s Guardian on the magnitude of the problem and highlighting the impact on the mental health of freelancers.
Forgotten UK Arts workers fall through the support cracks
Like most freelancers, I pay my tax PAYE the same as a full-time employee, yet I’ve not received a penny from the government. Neither has anybody else. Last year the creative industries contributed £112 billion to the UK economy, but we’ve just been cut adrift and left to fend for ourselves
I’m really lucky in that I’ve got my illustration work, which has been really busy (thank you again to everyone here who’s commissioned prints off me), so I’m not completely dependent on a day job that is now history, like so many are. Loads of people I know are really struggling after 3 months with no income. There’s not the slightest sniff of any potential work out there at the moment for anybody, and I don’t know anyone who thinks that’s about to change.
God only knows what kind of creative industries will be left after all this. Not much, I’d imagine. The whole sector is going to be absolutely decimated. I know a lot of the design agencies I usually work for won’t be opening up again. I’ve been in this industry long enough to know well the people who run these businesses, and they’ve told me as much.
The future looks pretty grim, that’s for sure
There’s a big job put on each year in Barcelona by a large tech Co.
That’ll be Gartner
Palo Alto Ignite I’d have thought
German sausage and cheese maker has to be the wurst käse scenario.
I'm far from the worst but pretty rubbish here, Entire summer of wedding/event photography cancelled which is normally when I earn 80-90% of my annual income. I get the self-employment support but it's based on an average month not a 'wedding every weekend plus assorted events and other jobs' month which I normally scrape through winter to get to. Back living with my parents for the time being :-/
Personally I'm more worried about the compounding impact of Brexit on a fragile economy starting to recover. I think people will have an appetite for a return to normal, cruises, eating out, festivals etc. Not so sure the grant based arts industries and charities will come out of this, the more commercial arts, West end, festivals will bounce back (or would have done if we didn't have an absolute **** in charge hell bent on Brexit suicide and jingoistic paint jobs).
I'm in a bit of a weird position personally, 9 months out of work after being bullied out of two jobs in 6 months, bugger all help from anyone, bit of universal credit which was a nightmare to claim (opened my eyes to the issues people who rely on it suffer, how such a good, simple idea could be so screwed up in implementation is beyond me), and then a very well paid job starting the day before lock down for a company people hate (which has a culture totally at odds with public perception) which is likely to come out of this ok.
All feels a bit surreal at the moment and upbeat for me but having come from a fairly bad place I feel for people who feel like they are staring into the abyss. If i hadn't been offered the job just before lock down I'd be in a very bad place now, the other role I had a second interview for and was quite confident I'd get was cancelled the week before lock down and put on indefinite hold. At least I had hope of another job to hang onto, God knows what its like for people now.
Thank God I got out of manufacturing, Covid 19, economic collapse and the removal of our main market through Brexit is going to hit that sector hard, Rolls Royce is the tip of the ice berg. The ending of furlough will be the death knell of many SMEs if cash flow doesn't get them first.
Agree re Universal Credit, it's an absolute shitshow. It confuses the hell out of me and I have two degrees, ha - god knows how so many people ever manage to successfully get what they're due, but then I guess that's the point isn't it.
Mobile World is a pretty big show held in Barcelona every year. As a city Barcelona is the place we go to most for meetings and the city must be seriously worried about what's going to happen. It has 3 exhibition centers and thousands of hotel rooms and conference spaces which look like getting no use for a while.
I started my redundancy notice this week so I can say the motorsport sector isn't fairing too well.
11 weeks to find work...
