Weekly, What recent changes are going on at your work / local businesses?
Posted by AntiSonOfBitchamajig@reddit | PrepperIntel | View on Reddit | 131 comments
This could be, but not limited to:
- Local business observations.
- Shortages / Surpluses.
- Work slow downs / much overtime.
- Order cancellations / massive orders.
- Economic Rumors within your industry.
- Layoffs and hiring.
- New tools / expansion.
- Wage issues / working conditions.
- Boss changing work strategy.
- Quality changes.
- New rules.
- Personal view of how you see your job in the near future.
- Bonus points if you have some proof or news, we like that around here.
- News from close friends about their work.
DO NOT DOX YOURSELF. Wording is key.
Thank you all, -Mod Anti
Raven_4562@reddit
Anybody noticed a sardine shortage? Can't seem to find them anywhere.
peperawrous@reddit
We cut a huge public health/harm reduction outreach we were running.
Visual_Mycologist_1@reddit
I work in industrial manufacturing. This has been the biggest slump for new work since 2008. I don't think people understand that what's happening behind the scenes is eventually going to catch up to store shelves and prices much more than it is now.
DorothysMom@reddit
I can confirm. Fortune 500 in the industrial sector. Demand has slowed significantly
CausalDiamond@reddit
Any particular products impacted the most?
Visual_Mycologist_1@reddit
It's across the board. Every sector is down. The trade war is so broad that even if you think an industry might be safe, there are probably hidden supply chain issues stemming from the shortages in other industries. I think consumers will feel electronics, clothes/textiles, toys and appliances the most. These goods are almost always imported. Even appliances made in the US are almost 100% imported components on the inside.
CrustyLocal@reddit
Can you expand on this please?
Visual_Mycologist_1@reddit
Nobody is buying new equipment to make things. When the economy is expanding, production capacity increases. Even when the economy is uneasy, old production equipment gets replaced. The last time I saw business this bad was after the auto industry collapse in 2008.
The general public never really saw the effect that had on industry. A lot of companies got nailed on their inventories because of that, and things like "just in time" manufacturing became very popular. That trend grew beyond just automotive. This in part contributed to the precarious position we found ourselves in for covid when the supply chain broke. We still haven't fully recovered from that headache and now this.
Manufacturing is not agile. There is a lot of momentum built up over the life of a product. Years can be spent designing it for maximum productivity. Many months (sometimes years) are spent putting together the machines to make it. Procedures are developed. Supply lines established. Distribution sorted. It all works itself into a balance once production turns on. If any part of that breaks down, there aren't exactly a lot of other options you can quickly turn to. In many cases, especially where China is concerned, there are no other options.
Panda-icing@reddit
Local school board on a hiring freeze and currently penny pinching to avoid layoffs.
Kitso_258@reddit
Went to Hobby Lobby yesterday, haven't been in years. I noticed a LOT of pre-made home decor stuff rather than the traditional craft supplies - I don't know if that's a deliberate shift for the store or not. I noticed that 4th of July stuff was minimal, pumpkins are already out. The backwall "top part" was already full of Christmas stuff.
But what stood out to me was that most of the shelves had empty totes on the top of them instead of product.
Work wise... a LOT of my friends in tech are unemployed. The vibe on LinkedIn has drastically shifted from recruiters, to job seekers. I'm still employed, but at work, literally no one is willing to look at anything new or change jobs out of fear of being the "new guy" in a different organization.
totpot@reddit
Yeah, this is a store that has a lot of empty shelves and has emptied the warehouse in an attempt to fill the shelves. The premade decor may be the result of going around to wholesalers and just buying whatever they already have in their warehouses.
Dirty_Dan92@reddit
My local credit union is going out of business and being sold. I am also being laid off in December. I work for the state for social security
Hefty_Tax_5635@reddit
More repairs and less new purchases. People are opting to fix their current and older vehicles rather than purchasing new. Vendors raise prices unexpectedly as soon as the week starts. We often tell our clients that our quotes cannot be promised for more than a day. Before we caught on to this situation we would have to keep our promises at the loss of income.
chucchinchilla@reddit
I’m actually glad more people are opting to hold onto their cars longer. It’s amazing how much money and resources are wasted by people who are constantly swapping into new cars or even buying more car than they actually need.
Nesseressi@reddit
People swapping for new cars put more used cars on the market for those who buy used cars.
CrustyLocal@reddit
Just went into the city & made the comment about how many cars there were in the for sale lots. I remember when you couldn’t buy a car if you wanted - now, there’s endless options readily available.
Mountain-Ad1420@reddit
Car audio industry. Business is completely dead. Went from doing roughly 5-7 cars a day to about 1-3 cars a week. Don’t know how much longer we can hold out.
Exact_Practice9195@reddit
Construction here - we’ve had projects delayed 2+ months due to inability to source raw material. Worked here 3 years and never had a delay like this.
YolandasLastAlmond@reddit
This is what is happening in Australia the last 5 years. It’s horrible. Collapsed a lot of businesses.
YolandasLastAlmond@reddit
Heaps of people are buying clothes, wearing them once and then returning them. It’s actually crazy. We get more returns than sales.
Tim_Bersau@reddit
Multiple heat-based transformer fires, including our own. Was on emergency power conditions for 5+ hours.
throwAwayWd73@reddit
I was considering posting the exact same thing, regarding substation transformers. The ones that have thousands of people without power when they fail.
What's really fun is all the paperwork that comes with the chaos.
I'm under the impression distribution is ran to failure because when it goes then it gets to be a capital improvement
qtprince@reddit
A lot less people are coming in for routine veterinary appointments and more for sick visits.
More and more clients are asking for just basic estimates on exams and vaccines.
Clients asking for payment plans. Clients only paying with credit cards rather than cash.
Getting berated over pricing more frequently.
Veterinary medications being backlogged and slower orders of dog/cat food.
Yeah. I somehow thought that going from dog grooming to the veterinary industry would be more recession proof without realizing that people will let their pets absolutely suffer faster than paying for any sort of treatment.
ContemplatingFolly@reddit
Or, they simply can't afford care.
SceneRoyal4846@reddit
In Canada, looking for a summer job but they’re all scams. My area isn’t exactly known for a hopping job market at any time. But it’s rough right now. There’s a restaurant with a hiring sign for like a month now and lots of people looking for work? So I don’t get why they’re not hiring anyone :/
BradBeingProSocial@reddit
It’s probably so that people don’t get mad at slow service because the business won’t hire enough staff
Atomsq@reddit
⬇️💲
HDauthentic@reddit
Automotive parts seem to be readily available for most major brands, I am the parts manager for a production body shop
ModernRobespierre@reddit
Major pet food manufacturer suddenly "delayed" railcar sized deliveries of ingredients after deciding to shut down a couple factories for a few days that usually run 24/7. Decreased demand for their premium offerings.
krissithegirl@reddit
Someone tried to scam us via ach transaction twice this week from somewhere in Alabama. My business is in Massachusetts and never does business out of state. On a lighter note, our number of scam calls has reduced for some odd reason.
Unique-Sock3366@reddit
SO many spam calls atm! And those fake parking ticket and toll booth email and text scams have gotten completely out of control.
eyeball-papercut@reddit
not even sophisticated. Not only do we not have tolls in our state, neither do the surrounding states. Telling me I am past due for our states toll fee is laughable.
DolliGoth@reddit
Same here. I really like to text them back about how awful a day im having or general venting. I figure if they're going to waste my day I may as well get some catharsis out of it.
One person I spike with said they keep a collection of the bad di k pics men send her and sends those back to the scammed instead. Ive considered following suit.
Mother-Wasabi-3088@reddit
They used spoofed caller ID so you'll be sending your dick pics to an innocent person
alwayspickingupcrap@reddit
I have discovered after numerous scams to my over 80 y/o mom with one a direct withdrawal of over $10,000 and ongoing direct ach withdrawal attempts that her bank now declines, that when someone is over 80 y/o, their online info is specifically targeted.
Good friend worked in senior care and said it's just a known thing. Her parents, neither of whom had dementia, had their kids take care of all banking simply due to the number of attacks.
A few different people I've talked to at bank have said the attacks have exponentially risen in the last year or so, possibly powered by AI.
Dildomancy@reddit
This explains why my bank and credit card company sends out generic emails every other day warning customers to watch out for scammers. I'm not even elderly.
krissithegirl@reddit
I hate AI. That's so scary.
QHCprints@reddit
Higher Ed layoffs around campus.
plantylibrarian@reddit
Yes, also the case on my campus, especially positions funded by federal grants.
QHCprints@reddit
Our team helps "keep the lights on" so hopefully a bit removed from the federal turmoil.
MostNet6719@reddit
Generally it appears in my university to be do more with less AND a side order of anti/DEI pro-Trump coming from our red state legislature. Faculty have decided to die on the hill of opposing restrictions on DEI irregardless of costs e.g. multimillion dollar mid year budget cuts as retaliation from state.
Retiring next March at 62. Ask me if I care about this mess anymore
DisastrousHyena3534@reddit
Yup lost one of my adjunct gigs
Tootaloobuckaroo@reddit
We live in a tourist town near Yellowstone Park. This year we have a lot less tourists and most are from out of the country. Feels like most Americans can’t afford a vacation, even a camping/cabin vacation.
lumpytorta@reddit
Or it’s almost like ICE’s presence and hostile practices are scaring people away. I’m in LA and the city is definitely not as lively as it was. Everyone is scared.
QHCprints@reddit
No official plans were cancelled but every single foreign friend I know would absolutely not come here right now. Especially the Canadians who would occasionally come over; we really pissed them off for totally legitimate reasons no one can seem to articulate. 🙄
bumbledbeez@reddit
Canadian here… yeah, no clue why we’re salty. Maybe it’s the whole ‘please don’t annex us’ thing sounding so unreasonable. 😂
beforethewind@reddit
Am I misunderstanding sarcasm? My bad if so.
But threatening the sovereignty of a historic ally and close friend is a pretty damn legitimate reason. "51st state," etc.
QHCprints@reddit
Yea, that was some sarcasm at the end. I am aware that we said really, really ignorant things to our neighbor and that has consequences.
beforethewind@reddit
Yeah thanks for confirming for me lol what can you expect from people who want the world to be must-see tv.
QHCprints@reddit
Yup, I'm really tired of watching them try to burn it down for the lolz.
crumblednewman@reddit
I live in an area of the PNW that gets tons of tourists in the summer. My business sits right along the state highway so I get to see the tourist traffic come and go. It used to be an utter PIA to try and get in and out during certain times of the day, especially Thursday-Sunday. The traffic volume this year is way down. Way, way down. I'm wondering if we'll see some small businesses closing down this fall because they weren't able to make enough during tourist season to stay open.
Tootaloobuckaroo@reddit
We have already seen businesses close.
AgileBet409@reddit
From West Coast trauma center hospital (NICU specifically) The shortages are insane here rn, so many products/supplies not being regularly stocked or updated. Heck, I found three items that were discontinued without any notice. We’re scraping by with what we can, but if you or a loved one has a child specifically at our hospital, or any around, know the nurses are getting real artsy fartsy to get through the day.
We’re pretty low on admits right now, which makes the shortages all the more strange. I’m guessing it’s something to do with tariffs or cost of production, but something to watch. Last weekend, we lost our family dog and I had to leave early to console my family since I was up at work. This week, while trying to see if I could use time off to get the hours covered, it seems the hospital changed their leave claims team, and their policies. Not sure if it’s everyone in our state or just our hospital, but this new group is allegedly much more strict with leave requests. Lots of staff members still very agitative and hostile when you mention contract negotiations between the union and our hospital, there’s a few trying to make small movements in protest.
From friend who works in Long Term residential care: lots of staff members being fired, they’re having a hard time keeping workers without needing to fire a few for risking the residents’ wellbeing.
jordandtb@reddit
Weld mining equipment (buckets, diggers) . A lot of orders, working overtime and just hired on a couple more welders.
sherwood_bosco@reddit
I work at a major research institution that has an extremely large IT footprint in systems administration. As of today, we've taken our hot and warm failover hardware down to cold at the request of the region power generation facility in order to relieve strain on the grid during a period of increased heat in order to preserve stability. This actually lines up well because we need to do a lot of UPS work, but it does not bode well for the remainder of the season. It's worth noting that this decision did not come from facilities or the infrastructure technical teams, but rather the C-suites on the advisement of the financial side of the house, since evidently the cost per unit would push the beans to far. So far this calendar year there have been a frankly disproportionate number of decisions driven by pocketbooks not best practices, compliance, or even safety, which wasn't previously the case. A lot of the technical staff aren't feeling heard, and we're hemorrhaging staff even in an already saturated market.
DetailFocused@reddit
yeah this sounds like a classic case of the bean counters running the show while the tech side’s waving red flags and getting ignored, shifting to cold failover during a heat event might check the budget box but it’s a risk tradeoff that feels shortsighted especially when it bypasses the folks who actually understand the systems, and if decisions like that keep stacking up with no input from ops or compliance it’s no wonder morale’s tanking and people are walking, feels like the kind of institutional memory loss that doesn’t show up until everything breaks at once
Rooooben@reddit
Ouch. It’s not good when they start taking actions that will harm in the long term, to save money right now. That means that maintenance money is being spent elsewhere, I’d be worried about their cash flow. Are they mainly federal contracts?
FriendlyPraetorian@reddit
In my industry (oil/gas/petrochem), my customers are tightening down on budgets/costs. We used to be able to present a quote, and there would be pretty much immediate payment without questions. Now, people are comparing quotes, having long meetings to try and justify costs, and skipping repairs they should be doing. Seems like the industry is anticipating a potential rough year.
AgileBet409@reddit
Dumb question, what kind of repairs are they missing?
FriendlyPraetorian@reddit
Ones related to efficiency mostly. Critical repairs to not have things (literally) explode are mostly still being conducted, but moderate/minor repairs that improve longevity and efficiency are being skipped more often.
noodleybrains@reddit
Work at a usually high volume dive bar. My sales are half/quarter of what they were this time last year. Took us two months to get straws from China. Summer business always slows down but I’ve never seen it this slow in my fourteen years of bartending.
redrumraisin@reddit
Noticed more people living in their cars at work and most of them are employed at various places around town.
BryceT713@reddit
I work for a state agency. We are expecting layoffs due to a massive deficit in the state budget. These layoffs are likely to expand due to the deficit being worse than previous projections due to a lower tax revenue forcast. This is largely driven by the fact that my state has no income tax and therefore a majority of tax revenue comes from sales tax. As economic fears grow people buy less, thustly paying less tax.
This will lead to a slow down in many state services as processing times increase. We're not at that point yet but without finding more revenue streams it seems that is an inevitable outcome.
lisarips@reddit
I'm sure I live in your state and also work for a state agency. The layoff/bumping threat continues with no end in sight.
Aurora1717@reddit
This will probably be my state next. They passed a flat tax rate and it left my city with a budget shortfall in the millions.
SWtoNWmom@reddit
Can you tell me a bit more about what you're experiencing with the flat rate tax? I am in Illinois, they tried to pass it a few years ago but it failed. If the city has a budget short fall because of the flat rate tax, does that mean people are having to pay less taxes out-of-pocket?
Astrolander97@reddit
Insurance providers are closing doors or offloading policies to lower their risk. The most eyebrow raising closures for me are the medium size carriers like United heritage. From speaking with colleagues this is not a decision that is coming from a wildfire or disaster reasoning.
SantaCruzSoul@reddit
Could this be due to cuts in NOAA? We (Florida) were just told a hurricane tracking satellite will no longer be used. They are also significantly decreasing weather balloons being launched into storms. Hurricane forecasts are about to be much less accurate.
ProfessionalFly2148@reddit
The NOAA/DOD data cut off 6/30 and other cuts really make me nervous on people assuming the great hurricane models we have will still work this year… could be shorter notice and more uncertainty than we’ve had lately and there’s been some devastating storms. Definitely nervous about that just since increased loss of life chance for those in vulnerable areas
Astrolander97@reddit
I forgot to note that I also have confirmed that at least one major east coast based insurer has had a security breach causing all of their internal systems to be inoperable for at least ten days at the time of my last communication. Their employees were forced to use non company Gmail accounts in the interim.
Chickaduck@reddit
It’s not related to wildfire? What is the motivation?
Astrolander97@reddit
Its an incredibly complex situation but the most base explanation is exposed in the reinsurance side of the market. Llyods of London is a widely known name in the space so they're easier to research. Essentially all carriers dont actually carry the totality of the risk valued on your policy. Its pooled and then traded and sold to investors who have the capital to take on the risk (these players would be the syndicates). I would consider the driving factor to be risk pool churn, if the framework of a pool has been largely the same for decade the risk is safe, but when complex market changes are convincing enough for a majority investor to drastically change the weights on their portfolio this will then increase the held risk for remaining investors. Then they change and so on. Some companies at the consumer level choose to take the abandoned policies/homeowners en masse which increases this risk if they can afford it, short term loss but easily gaining a new market, this can work but can also cause them to fail if claims pour in too quickly before their reserves fill. Some choose to limit what types of policies they sell either cutting E&S, Residential, Commercial policies.
TLDR; markets/society is currently calculated as volatile so risk pool investors are choosing to move their money where is makes safer returns.
CannyGardener@reddit
Aaaaand this is why I come to this sub. This is an angle that I had not thought about much here, but is absolutely an important piece of the picture. Thank you =)
Forlaferob@reddit
https://archive.ph/2025.06.26-155820/https://www.ft.com/content/9e5df375-650d-492e-ba51-fb5a34e6ddd6 I came across this great read earlier
Flex1nFinesse@reddit
Inventory is getting longer to receive, causing things to slow down. Has been like this for a couple weeks now. Even simple things that were commonly available are supposedly taking 3x longer to receive. These common items make me wonder if what are in stores is on hand stock and when that runs out, it is OUT.
Stay safe y'all, I fear things are going to get marginally worse.
Unique-Sock3366@reddit
We are entering our busy season at my hospital. We’ve had no difficulty hitting our new “productivity targets” over the last week.
Still staffing lean, but not quite as laser thin. We are officially not replacing staff who leave. If we find that we’re understaffed in the future, this must be proven before a position is created and posted.
We’re sending our unit secretaries and nursing assistants all over the hospital, keeping only one of each for ourselves. Many are very stressed and dissatisfied.
Our nurses are being called off or floated to sister units frequently.
We did receive a small bump in our on call compensation rate.
AgileBet409@reddit
Same here, in terms of the busy season. I swear, I run around all day when I’m on the clock.
Unique-Sock3366@reddit
Yes! Hit my move goal on my Apple Watch before noon and then routinely double it before the end of my shift! 🤣
BionPure@reddit
Is census decent?
Unique-Sock3366@reddit
It has been for our specialty, yes! But we have been proactively recruiting patients, as appropriate.
(You know: “You’re scheduled for a procedure tomorrow. Want to come on in now?” Etc.)
Dildomancy@reddit
In my neighborhood, a lot of neighbors have started new vegetable gardens. I've never seen this much interest in vegetable gardening around here.
On a related note, multiple grocers in my area—from national chains all the way down to the tiny local ethnic markets—are having stock issues in the produce department. The produce shelves are either out-of-stock, picked over, and what's available isn't good quality. This has been going on for about three weeks. Again, multiple stores, different days, different times of day—same issues.
splat-y-chila@reddit
I'm surprised in my neighborhood that those who have had veggie gardens continue to do so without expanding their veggie patch, and those who haven't still haven't picked it up. It's so BAU it's eerie. Folks have been getting more fruit trees for their orchards though.
hockeymaskbob@reddit
Sales are way down at the grocery store I work at, we're having to cut hours to stay on budget, seems no one has money to spend right now.
Specialist_Fault8380@reddit
Sales are down at the grocery store?!? Is it a high end or specialty one?
Various-General-8610@reddit
We were told yesterday that we will not be receiving raises this year.
I was not surprised, but the rest of my team was.
FormerNeighborhood80@reddit
The local well known LTL ( Less than truck load) is hiring more drivers and dock workers. Increased business due to long haul full load companies not doing well since all the tariffs.
Poopbicycle1@reddit
I'm in Canada and I hear the same thing from people. I was scrolling the news and saw an article about construction in Toronto being down.
SceneRoyal4846@reddit
Not in my small town. They’re tearing out a lot of green space and I’ve noticed a lot of dead animals :( I know we need housing and there’s so much to build on. But the pace of it and the lack of affordability doesn’t bode well.
roger3rd@reddit
The most worrisome development at my very large company is the fact that nearly all of the leadership are thralls of a knuckledragger cult. Every fact is seen thru a distorted political lens. One example. We make our products from steel, but somehow they are in defense of steel tariffs, which threaten our ability to compete and even survive.
iridescent-shimmer@reddit
Gotta say, I feel lucky to work in manufacturing and know how extensively our leadership despises the current administration. No way I could stay otherwise.
QHCprints@reddit
It’s a death cult; get out.
erbush1988@reddit
I was just laid off yesterday.
Not a huge issue - but the reasoning is, so stick with me here.
I work until the 11th (end of employment date) for a BPO (an outsourcing company that hires people for contract or full time, permanent employment).
We had laid off around 100 people in the last year. Our clients are NOT hiring - and not internally either. I've been on calls with them and they describe business getting very slow. This time last year we had around 10 clients, each with 20-30 outsourced employees (US based, but worked for us officially)
Now, out of the 10 or so clients we have / had, one was doing very well. But they still had staff reductions as they were moving to in-house AI customer support. So either way, less open jobs.
Personally, I'm fine financially and this job isn't a make or break for me. But the take-away should be that 9 of 10 clients had shit business performance over the last 6-8 months. The one that had good performance moved to AI replacing employees.
Rooooben@reddit
As a BPO, and I’m sure you no longer care, the smart move would be to train everyone on using and creating AI agents. Then your clients hire the BPO to help them transition to AI. We did that and started getting new contracts immediately.
erbush1988@reddit
Funny thing is I did bring this up, but leadership didn't have the capacity or desire to do that at the time.
Oh well I guess, lol.
Lifeguardinator@reddit
Im pretty sure im getting laid off at the end of this month. Today my sales rep pulled my crew from a job while we were already there. we just got our schedule for next month its blank. no one is on it except the one employee who has been there 15 years.
erbush1988@reddit
Wishing you the best.
Hopefully you get some severance having been there so long.
privateaccountk20@reddit
Plenty-Salamander-36@reddit
privateaccountk20@reddit
Absolutely, personally I noticed we went from doing it ourselves to having to explain to the ai, create special docs so the ai can do its magic, correct the ai, and convert the docs to a presentable template for clients. Something that took 30 mins now takes 2 hours. Im not mad, work is work and changes are bound to happen. As long as I get paid its fine.
Rooooben@reddit
Except they are paying another persons salary for that AI, so they expect at least 1 or 2 cuts from it.
MsSpentMiddleAge@reddit
I was in a waiting room and couldn't help overhearing two women having a conversation. One was excited about her new job-- it consists wholly of looking at what AI has written, and fixing it!
titanaarn@reddit
Luckily I work for a non-profit that works with foster children and contracts with state government. While our contract is secure until next year, in the mean time we have had to remove a lot of more inclusive LGBTQ language about the children (mostly teens) on our website. We're still recording this information, but are removing it from reports to avoid having any funding targeted by the federal government.
My wife runs her own therapy practice. Much like during COVID, many of her clients are all coming to her with the same shared concerns about the government and world at-large rather than the more typical interpersonal problems.
Socialpsychphd23@reddit
Fewer customers overall - businesses are empty, especially restaurants (may be due to ICE raids). Fewer tourists. Crime rates are increasing. Local companies are not hiring. Homeless encampments are increasing in size and number of locations. We are not leaving the house unless we really have to. We go straight to other family member’s homes for gatherings rather than casually going out anymore.
alwayspickingupcrap@reddit
May I ask what size city you live in and the general region you are in?
Unique-Sock3366@reddit
Ouch…! I’m so sorry!
Are you comfortable giving a very general location? I’m in North Carolina.
DisastrousHyena3534@reddit
University instructor at 3 different schools. Lost my job at one school due to budget cuts. Picked up a second class at school 2 due to booming enrollment. School 3 holding steady.
School 1 (now cut from roster) was science classes for education majors
School 2 science dept with many military & non traditional students training for health care
School 3 liberal arts science dept majors
Fewer students going for BA’s in education is my guess.
thegalli@reddit
Why become a teacher at this point?
The government, at every level, sticks their noses in the classroom to dictate what and how you teach
The parents treat you like an adversary or a babysitter
Kids have social media brain rot and can't read or retain information
The pay sucks, even if you do only work 182 days a year
DisastrousHyena3534@reddit
You’re not wrong. I’m proud that I always told my students to refuse to be gaslit by admin and to take their days off as needed because the burnout is real.
thegalli@reddit
oh damn I completely forgot to mention how horrible the administrative bosses appear to be in education, almost a limitless amount of "failing upwards", incompetence, and poor leadership skills.
kinetogen@reddit
This time of year, my line of work is typically running 70 to 80 appointments a day. Yesterday, we saw 35. Automotive Service Department.
adoptagreyhound@reddit
After many years of using local auto repair shops, the price quotes I've been given for work by a shop that I've been using for over 10 years have caused me to go back to doing my own work for any repair or maintenance type service that I'm capable of doing.
In one case, their price quote was about 4 times what I could buy the exact same parts for and install myself for a very easy job. In fact, I spent a couple hundred more to add an air conditioner to my garage so that I could my repairs during the summer comfortably, and still ended up paying way less to DIY that job. I have to think there are others who have gone back to doing their own work, but there are also many who stop doing maintenance and end up paying for it in the long run.
I now have to be way more selective about the work I have them do and there is no more "just dropping off the car to be fixed" if it's a job that I can do myself, even though I would love to still have them do the work. It's a matter of cost at this point, and I don't blame the shop, as I get a very similar quote at any shop in the area. Their operating costs are now costing them to lose work.
MagickaMoose@reddit
Same here but in the RV sales side. I’m an appointment setter and it’s been a struggle during this peak season to even get people in the door.
Pontiacsentinel@reddit
I think fewer people are taking roadtrips this year so not doing the final check kind of appointments.
kinetogen@reddit
That's certainly the feeling I get in conversation with my customers.
KaerMorhen@reddit
I need a new AC compressor right now but I simply can't afford it yet. Which sucks in the Louisiana summer heat.
kinetogen@reddit
Comfort items and maintenance fluids are definitely put to the wayside more often this summer, and functional/necessary repairs are about the only thing that sticks. It's not COVID era slow, but compared to the rest of the last 7 years, business is lagging.
TopSignificance1034@reddit
WPR just laid off 15 people -
https://www.wpr.org/news/wisconsin-public-radio-layoffs-cut-programs-federal-funding
kheret@reddit
It sucks, To the Best of Our Knowledge was a good one. A couple years ago they decided to not have a station in Milwaukee (just classical music), for inexplicable reasons, and I bet that lost some donors.
Pontiacsentinel@reddit
There is a cool show on public tv called Wisconsin Foodie. That guy is really good at finding interesting food stories. I live nowhere near there but found it very interesting and fun to watch. I want to send him/those on the crew good energy.
offinthewoods10@reddit
Work in Trade compliance, people are still importing but tariffs are definitely adding complexity and costs, both in actual monetary terms and in administrative costs as they have to adjust to the new regulations. A lot of shifting of supply chains.
China is still the top manufacturer. It wouldn’t surprise me if more investment is placed in Canada than the US to avoid the sweeping tariffs for the imported components.
AnomalyNexus@reddit
Pretty quiet week in my small corner of finance world. Seems everyone has resigned themselves to the fact that it's all to chaotic & just wait and see.
VerminReaper@reddit
Not directly related to my business operations, but I’m concerned by how many people I know who have reached out asking for jobs. Typically I might have one or two people inquire about seasonal positions each summer, but this year I’ve had six.
CannyGardener@reddit
This is something I'm seeing more as well in my industry (foodservice distribution). Vendors laying people off, and all those folks are coming to me asking if I have jobs available. I have been in this industry going on 20 years. The only other time I saw this sort of thing was after '08 and after Covid.
startup_canada@reddit
Im self employed, but the phone isn’t ringing. Im booked out for a couple months but normally I should be getting inquiries everyday right bow
Poopbicycle1@reddit
What do you do?
startup_canada@reddit
Construction, more specifically exteriors. Roofing siding, eavestrough etc. normally have a guy or two working with me. Currently solo because it’s slow. Lots of my buddies are slow too, and the guys with employees are considering lay off even tho it’s the middle of the busy season
QHCprints@reddit
Just had a roof put on and they were able to start work a few days after the quote. I imagine they were only waiting on materials.
startup_canada@reddit
Yea, we are normally booked out months right now.
QHCprints@reddit
To add to that, I got 3 quotes and each said they could start within a couple weeks at most.
Pontiacsentinel@reddit
Nonprofits are holding their breath as the US government vote on the "big beautiful bill" is likely this week before the end of the fiscal year (June 30). It may be there are mass layoffs in the nonprofit sector coming and very decreased social safety nets available.
SeigneurMoutonDeux@reddit
FQHCs haven't had their base grant increased since 2016.
CPI increased 33% in that same period.
Now they're talking cuts.