The Recession and How It Is Affecting Londoners

As a reminder to those of us with jobs How the Recession is Affecting Londoners in the Evening Standard.

The article covers the exploits of one Jessica Marr, a friend of mine, and her trials and tribulations through the market place for jobs since December 2008, and how, despite being more than willing to take a hefty pay cut, just to land a job, it seems nigh on impossible to get hired.

Thankfully, for my sins, I have been gainfully and consistently employed since April 2006, when I first joined Last.fm, and had nothing but a weekend between finishing my role there and joining my current employer Stink in September 2008.  Of course it is easier for the papers to cover the recession from a more negative angle, and those with jobs aren’t the ones they are going to be sticking the tape recorder in front of to interview, but it has been interesting to see the reporting of the recession and credit crunch, as if it were the apocalypse.

Having seen my father, self-employed since 1978, weather multiple recessions, as well as industry down-turns when the price of Brent Crude was no more than $10 a barrel, I am more circumspect about recessionary events being reported, but then I also benefit from relative professional attractiveness and the fact that I could likely walk from one job straight into another, something I am both thankful for and definitely don’t take for granted.  And so for this Londoner, the current recession is just another economic cycle, one luckily that I seem to be weathering better than most.