# Consulting Structural Engineer Redundancies Mounting



## Strongback (27 Nov 2008)

Consulting structural engineering work has been scarce in 2008 but in the last couple of months the number of redundancies appears to be rising rapidly. Does anybody see this changing or is everyone crossing their fingers and hoping something better will happen in 2009?

If things dont pick up in the first couple of months of next year I can see jumping on a plane as being the only option.

The prediction that 2/3's of architects will be made redundant seems to have been fulfilled.

To me 10+ years of hard work to build up the contries buildings and infrastructure counts for nothing if people in their 20/30's have to escape these shore to find employment.

If anybody has any views on the state of the business or what the future holds I would be interested to hear them.


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## annfield (27 Nov 2008)

Things are not rosy at all, i am hearing of people on four day week down to one week on and one week off for junior members or graduates. other rumours are very depressing that i wont bother to pass on

from contractors, to planners, engineers and QSs, the lack of any substanital projects in the pipeline from public and private client will mean that companies will have to trim down staff numbers to sustainable levels.

I'm hearing Dubai workload is slowing down too too due to the price of oil


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## Strongback (27 Nov 2008)

I have heard that some engineering consultancies have let go a good persentage of their staff although there are a few big companies who haven't laid anyone off yet. I have heard of a couple of consultants with 20 odd staff who have been laying off and now are heading towards laying off all staff except diectors and a tectnician or two. 

A number of my friends have been laid off in the last few months and although they are chartered with 10 years+ experience and have been associates thet have had no luck with getting a job. Most are going to try to get by on nixer type work and some are getting BER registered.

I have a friend who is looking for work in Dubai and he has been told some projects are being put on hold. There are also, for example, a lot of english companes in Dubai and they are transfering workers there as work is drying up in the UK. In saying this I was in Dubai last month and there is a lot of work going on. Apparently to make decent money it is necessary to take a management position.

I think a lot of companies are runnning out of money and there will be significant redundancies in Jan/Feb '09. A few well known large architectural practices have already had to cut their staff by more than 50%.

Does anybody have any insight into when work might pick up?


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## Strongback (27 Nov 2008)

[broken link removed]


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## joejoe (27 Nov 2008)

Strongback said:


> [broken link removed]



Greenland!!!! Whats going on there???

Joejoe


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## joejoe (27 Nov 2008)

annfield said:


> Things are not rosy at all, i am hearing of people on four day week down to one week on and one week off for junior members or graduates. other rumours are very depressing that i wont bother to pass on
> 
> from contractors, to planners, engineers and QSs, the lack of any substanital projects in the pipeline from public and private client will mean that companies will have to trim down staff numbers to sustainable levels.
> 
> I'm hearing Dubai workload is slowing down too too due to the price of oil



If the average unemployment rate in Ireland is 7% (say) what % of the figure is construction related trades / professionals?

Joejoe


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## Strongback (28 Nov 2008)

JoeJoe

From my own limited straw poll I would conservatively estimate that a minimum of 25-35% of design team based construction professionals have been made redundant.   I would say this figure could by greater for builders although small builders doing house extensions etc seem to be doing ok.


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