Job security and spending decisions post-Brexit

Nitefly

FreddieVanHalen said:

A colleague has just had the news that £1M of equity funding for his tech start up has been pulled, with Brexit stated directly by the investor as the reason.

Wow,a million quid gone, just like that?  That's a real bummer.

I think a lot of people might start using Brexit as an excuse for reneging on stuff...

DarnWeight

I work in Research Council-funded science, and am lucky enough to be working in an area covered under "National Capability", i.e. we're seen as being important to the nation in contributing knowledge/resources/manpower to the scientific community of the country as a whole.  There are a whole bunch of other projects, however, which are wholly or part-funded by the EU, and these are the "at risk" bits.  I contributed to an EU project for about 6 months last year (it wasn't core work), and I guess it's this kind of stuff that the government would be looking at funding using part of the £350M (*pfft*)...but crucially, they were (a) only guaranteeing equivalent funding up until 2020, and (b) I'd bet there will still be competition for whatever resources are available.

Right now, I'm OK, but a number of colleagues are bricking it.  Come 2020, if the situation hasn't changed drastically, I'd bet there'll be another round of redundancies.  New contract terms are also just around the corner, and any future pension or redundancy settlements will be worth 9/5ths of fuck all by the time I cash out.

The belt will remain tightened for the forseeable future!

Clarky

professorben said:

Clarky;1137862" said:

Clarky Shredding Inc just bought some new strings

Up front or on the never never?

with actual money.. almost £200 worth of strings

stimpsonslostson

The scientific research group I work in is funded by an EU grant, so times are uncertain at best. I've heard on the grapevine that many of the European based funding bodies are suspending new contracts/grants to UK institutions until the picture becomes clearer.

This is reflected by the fact that I've just had a meeting with my boss and he's said that I need to diversify my skills and expand my CV as much as possible in the 12months I have left on my current contract, as my "current career isn't going to last forever, so best cover your bases incase you need to make a change".

To say that I'm nervous is something of an understatement. Time to batten down the hatches and save up. Just in case.  

Chalky

Nitefly;1137895" said:

FreddieVanHalen said:

A colleague has just had the news that £1M of equity funding for his tech start up has been pulled, with Brexit stated directly by the investor as the reason.














Wow,a million quid gone, just like that?  That's a real bummer.

I think a lot of people might start using Brexit as an excuse for reneging on stuff...

Wisdom. E.g. We can't give you a pay rise because of Brexit....

FreddieVanHalen

Nitefly said:

FreddieVanHalen said:

A colleague has just had the news that £1M of equity funding for his tech start up has been pulled, with Brexit stated directly by the investor as the reason.

Wow,a million quid gone, just like that?  That's a real bummer.

I think a lot of people might start using Brexit as an excuse for reneging on stuff...

This may have been an excuse, who knows.

One of the major contributing factors for this funding being pulled was the threat of not being able to recruit staff from across the EU as there were very specific skills needed for this company.

The plan is now to re-negotiate funding with the company to be established in the EU, with either Germany, Sweden or Poland as probable destinations.

Strat_a_tat_tat

The FTSE's so called recovery has to be looked at in the light of two major moves by Mark Carney... 1. Announcing that the B of E is going to be printing more money (although nobody calls it that nowadays)  2. Announcing that he's thinking of reducing interest rates (and that always makes share prices rise... and, sure enough, last week there was a massive rise in the FTSE within minutes of his announcement). Thing is... these moves are buoying up the market... but can't be guaranteed to continue doing so.

Then there's the issue of just looking at the overall market - and saying everything's OK. Right now, Housebuilders have not seen much recovery in their stock prices - which have taken an absolute hammering (I could also mention bank shares... but - rightly or wrongly - some people don't appear to have much sympathy for banks).

If the question is... How will Brexit affect finances... one can predict some overall effects - but it's too soon to work out the actual numbers.

LoFi

Sporky said:

I work for the European arm of an American company; nothing's been said officially but the quiet message is that we have little if anything to worry about.

Ditto the first part, but we're a bit worried, though that may be to do with the fact that we're the main European office and deal directly with (not to mention travel to) Europe ourselves, rather than through European subsidiaries.

Chalky

Had a meeting with 2 guys this afternoon and one of them raised Brexit at the end. He is a down-to-earth type guy but he's worried about the general effect on his life and business. Non-specific fear you might call it. The other guy wasn't bothered and I suspect didn't vote. He's more of a risk-taker anyway who just deals with whatever life throws at him.

p90fool

I work for a well-known food retailer and we've all had an email saying "business as usual".

In fact a pretty well identical email to the the ones which preceded my last two redundancies.

Sporky

LoFi said:

Sporky said:

I work for the European arm of an American company; nothing's been said officially but the quiet message is that we have little if anything to worry about.

Ditto the first part, but we're a bit worried, though that may be to do with the fact that we're the main European office and deal directly with (not to mention travel to) Europe ourselves, rather than through European subsidiaries.

The UK market is our largest in Europe, so assuming the economy doesn't completely tank it'll mean we need a bonded warehouse here, plus a finance team, HR team, blah blah blah. Either it'll mean a bigger UK business or that it'll be uneconomical to carry on trading here at all - it really depends on the terms of any departure.

The company hasn't, historically, been big on redundancies, and is owned by one chap who thinks storms exist to be weathered, if not shouted down. We will see.

stickyfiddle

I work in the middle east on major infrastructure projects. Low oil prices are a far bigger concern here than a low pound or Brexit.

ArchtopDave

I work for the NHS, though planning on retiring in 18 months to 2 years. 

 I'll be very surprised if I even see a single BREXIT Penny head my way, though sometime soon the Government will need to face up (at least to some degree) that the NHS is currently broke money wise.

chillidoggy

My holiday is going to cost me more. Apart from that, business is very good indeed.

Evilmags

Stuck all my savings in Swiss Francs before the referendum. Bought a load of UK stock potions three days later. Sold them today. 

digitalscream

One of my mates works for a foreign company as Director of European Sales. I believe they've cancelled all plans to run it from the UK now, so he's got a choice - move to Europe (and all the pain that'll entail in a couple of years) or look for another job.

My own employers have just canned their European expansion plans too (too much uncertainty), although they're still expanding into Australia. None of which affects me directly, of course, because my work is on the one sales channel that operates globally.

As for me...nothing changes, for now.

jd0272

Ministry of Justice. Feckers took the water coolers out of the offices, cost cutting apparently. Still, sent a wee man several tens of miles to change a strip light tube at a cost of circa £80. Hmmm....

professorben

Clarky;1137903" said:

professorben said:

Clarky;1137862" said:Clarky Shredding Inc just bought some new strings

Up front or on the never never?










with actual money.. almost £200 worth of strings

Good lord man!!!!
See lefties pay over the odds for everything.
My last lot cost me £10 for 3 sets.....

professorben

Chalky;1138119" said:

Had a meeting with 2 guys this afternoon and one of them raised Brexit at the end. He is a down-to-earth type guy but he's worried about the general effect on his life and business. Non-specific fear you might call it. The other guy wasn't bothered and I suspect didn't vote. He's more of a risk-taker anyway who just deals with whatever life throws at him.

How is Boris these days?

mgaw

TTony said:

mellowsun said:

Just a feeler question really. I'm interested to know who here as put off or postponed large-ish spending decisions since the referendum, and also, how people feel about job security.

I'm looking at spending the largest amount I have ever spent.

By a factor of 3.5x.

And no, it's not a guitar.

I'm firmly of the opinion that a lot of the pre-referendum scare stories were just, errrr, scare stories.  I'm also fully aware that a lot of the pre-referendum promises were complete BS too.

Yes, there will be some ups & downs as everything adjusts (assuming that anything happens - I'm still not 100% that we'll leave), but the main damage will be to politician's careers rather than the overall economy.

The FTSE-100 seems to be happy enough.  Whatever happened to the day-after "billions wiped off the value of the UK / pensions" sensationalist news stories, and why has there been no "billions wiped back on to the value of the UK / pensions" follow-up stories??

The FTSE-250 has also bounced back

And even the French & German markets are recovering - they mirror the FTSE-250 rather than the FTSE-100.

i wouldnt bet my shirt on it.......promise of lower interest rates...money ready to be pumped in at a moments notice more QE after if required, not the actions of a confident bouyant country