Thought I would post a quick personal account...
I live in Japan and have done so for the last 6 years. All at the same spot so I am starting to know quite a few people in the neighborhood...
Anyway, was shopping for books this weekend and heard my name, turned around and saw my second door neighbor in the department store uniform I was shopping at .. . A little surprised I ask what had brought here to work here (she has had her own DTP and creative advertising studio for a long time, doing mostly subcontracts for bigger agencies, she works from home and has practically no overhead...) and she told me that from 97 to 98 business went down by 50% ... And going into 99 the trend had not abated ... Cut in half again. Scary she said, so she had to find a job as salesclerk ... Life is tough...
Over the holidays, everywhere (every party ) you went to , you heard stories of people being put on "listora" (restructuring) often case a transfer far away with a pay cut and very little in the way of moving expenses or anything... Small businesses are failing left and right ...
I need some second hand tools to do some home repair myself, and when I went to the "pawn shops" and "recycle shopes" around my area , the places were full of whatever you wanted to buy. These are not expensive tools at all, so the fact that they are showing up in pawn shops means some people are really cleaning the garage to get some money or construction is no longer an occupation that pays well I supppose.
Sorry no charts or figures available.... (g)
stephan |
