Monday, October 20, 2008

Global Meltdown: How safe is your Job?

The writing is clearly on the wall now. There is an obvious meltdown in the world financial markets. The impact is being seen on the jobs as well. The companies have started to downsize the staff (Jet Airways fiasco is the latest example). They actually have no other option. If a company has to survive, it has to downsize to cut costs. The easiest victim would be the employee who is an average performer and is not quite the blue eyed boy of his manager.

What are your options in such a scenario?

Start saving for the rainy day, if you already haven't! This is the time to accept the mistake. You should have started this much earlier. But it's better late than never. You should now start to save as much as you can for the dreaded day when you will fall pray to the job loss.
  • If you had saved Rs 2,000/- every month for the past 5 years, you would have had Rs. 1,20,000/- by now only in principal. I've not counted the interest you could have earned on it in the FD or for that matter RD (These are the safest instruments and you will never lose money here).
  • This fund would help you in your lean period and will cover your EMIs, rent and telephone bill.
In case, you are one of the scapegoats, liquidate those shares, where you had invested in order to make hefty gains. Whatever is the leftover in this investment can now work for the payments of your bills and help you run the household expenses till you find the next job.

Start Enhancing your skills. Any new skill earned can help you in getting a new job in case of a job loss.

Make yourself visible in the organization. It makes it difficult to fire you, if you are known to people. But this should be through your work and not through the other activities.

Scale down your expectations. Be it in the present company or in the new job that you are looking for, you should bring your expectations a bit down and be realistic. A job in hand is better than 10 lucrative offers.

Better be serious about your job. This way, you may not have to actually watch the day when you are given the pink slip.

Disclaimer

All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. The author makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.