Updating our previous post, we have learned that RMC has not only laid off up to ten employees in offices throughout California but has also reneged on job offers to several graduating students. We understand the need for layoffs in a recession but it doesn't make very much sense (from both a business and ethical perspective) to make job offers to relatively inexpensive students and then pull them a few months later.
We apologize but all we have is bad news this time. We will get right to the rundown...
ZweigWhite (via OH&S Magazine) - The subscription-only AEC research firm recently released a report that stated that 51% of AEC firms laid off approximately 8% of their employees in 2008. Expect the numbers to be worse this year...
RMC Water and Environment - A loyal reader recently sent us a tip that RMC has decimated their Sacramento office of their entire wastewater division.
Lake County, California (via the Record Bee) - Lake County in Northern California is laying off their Water Resouces Director. This one sounds more like a political decision but a layoff is a layoff.
Layne Christensen - The publicly traded well drilling company has been laying off employees since the end of 2008. The transcript of yesterdays Q1 2009 conference call is full of information on the state of the water industry. Give the transcript a read if you are slow at work this week...
City of Waltham, Massachusetts (via the Daily News Tribune) - The City of Waltham has recently decided to layoff a junior civil engineer in the Engineering Department.
San Luis Obispo County (via The Tribune) - The County is eliminating 28 positions, all through attrition, except for one Utility Department engineer who will be laid off. That sucks.
Thats all we have today. Keep the layoff tips coming...
The recession is hitting private consultants and water utilities equally hard. While the media seems to believe that the economy is picking up because of the recent stock market rally, the recent news on furloughs and layoffs tells a different story.
-San Francisco Department of Public Works, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department: 30 laborers. (This is on top of over 400 layoffs in these same departments in January 2009)
-Los Osos Community Services District: 10% across the board salary cuts (e.g. furloughs)
-Calaveras County Water District: 20 Golden Handshakes
-City of Haverhill, MA: Mandatory furloughs
-City of Daly City, CA: More mandatory furloughs
We will keep posting information on layoffs in the water and wastewater industry as we hear about them. Help us out by emailing tips to us at admin@terratruth.com .
We have an array of information to post today so we'll get right to it.
Zweigwhite 2009 Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) Industry Outlook
The first item we are presenting is a summary of the Zweigwhite 2009 AEC Industry Outlook by Building Design + Constuction Magazine. Zweigwhite is a management consulting firm that provides information and services to architecture and engineering firms. The summary is a bit vague because the summary is basically an advertisement to purchase the full data report from Zweigwhite. However, there is some useful information in the report such as the expectations of industry CEO's on what business will be like in 2009. According to the summary, only 16% of AEC CEO's believe that business in 2009 will be outstanding or excellent. 46% 23%, and 15% think that business will be good, satisfactory, and poor, respectively. Given that people seem to be bullish in general, these percentages do not invoke a lot of confidence.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers Engineering and Construction Survey
Another CEO survey was completed by Big 4 accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The information provided in this survey is also frusteratingly vague but it is worth a look through, if only to see an example of a technical report that is not helpful (e.g. don't send anything like this to your clients if you want repeat business from them). See this link for additional "data" from the survey.
Update on Clark County Layoffs
In March, we blogged about layoffs in Clark County. Updating that story, on Thursday the Las Vegas Review Journal wrote that the County is laying off almost 50% of civil engineers in the Development Services department. The County is also leaving 33 of the remaining 56 positions vacant. The laid off engineers are going into a tough Las Vegas job market. Gambling and housing starts in southern Nevada have been severely impacted by the recession.
Paul Krugman's Outlook on Unemployment
Hopefully things will start to turn around soon but we don't have too much hope that things will change in the near future - apparently economist Paul Krugman doesn't think so either. In a speech he gave Friday at the University of Cincinnati, Krugman stated that he believed unemployment would rise to 12% nationwide. That is a 50% increase over the current unemployment rate of 8.1%.
Scary.
According to Employment Spectator, Jacobs Engineering is laying off 70 employees from their Lakeland, Florida office. Jacobs Engineering is a huge firm with over 55,000 employees according to their website, so this isn't a huge hit (except to those 70 employees).
On a brighter note, there are some places that are still hiring civil and environmental engineers. While experienced engineers that have portable clients are always in demand, finding a job as an entry level engineer is a challenge during this recession. If you are searching for a good place to start or continue your career, check out these agencies and utilities that are somewhat immune to recessions.
-Army Corps of Engineers
-Bureau of Reclamation
-Pacific Gas & Electric (search for "recent college graduate")
This Las Vegas Sun article states that Clark County will be making a large number of layoffs in the near future, including civil engineers. The County is providing a buyout package (~ $25,000). This is a lot more generous that any severance packages available in the private sector.
Rumor has it that the Washington Division of URS Corp layed off approximately 200 employees in February. No word on layoffs at other URS divisions.
A top 20 ENR design firm, Black and Veatch, layed off at least 140 employees in last month. While most of these layoffs occurred in their Kansas City office, layoffs have also occurred this year in their Walnut Creek, California office.
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