Under bush, deficit spending as %of GDP went up to 2004, then progresively lowered to below the last 40 year average. Meaning he was spending less than average, even with 2 wars and tax cuts because GDP was growing. The total debt grew because yes while he was lowering the rate of deficit spending he was still deficit spending. Only Clinton managed to provide a surplus but that to is misleading since He ruled over an astounding 22% growth in GDP much due to the tech inflation which popped in 2000, and severe tax increases for small and mid-size businesses. Really all in all Bush was no different as a spender than any of the others. Clinton to also had intergovernmental transfers to help the deficit number, which is not really income. We are doing the same thing again.
Measured in nominal dollars, the dollar value of the debt rose 72%, but that doesnt account for GDP growth and Population boom and inflation or the evil lurker - intergovernmental obligations - money we owe ourselves already - specifically the social security fund.
The real debt increase everyone is talking about held by the tax payers, Japan, China et all is the last line - 8%.
half-decent article on layoffs in most recent issue of architect. showcases several youngish forlorn idealistic types.
online article on decline of economy in eastern europe quoted someone, "it is not that bad. we've been through worse before."
brought back memories of two senior persons who took me under their wings many years ago.
vincent was a refugee and a promising young architect in pre-war lithuania. soviets rolled in and packed him off to siberia. released in 1956 or so, he made his way to america where he became the top detailer for a very large pre-eminent architectural firm. in those days the profession had real senior draftsman who really could detail. every working drawing he did was a work of art.
bernie was born in brooklyn and left when drafted into the army prior to the korean war. he had not finished his education and never obtained a degree. said he was at pusan. you can look that place up in the wikipedia. returning home he needed a job and found something as a draftsman. worked his way up to be the best. knew every major architect by first name.
go rent some charles bronson movies, death wish included, get a new attitude, and kick some ass beginning with yours first.
On NPR’s Morning Edition they had an interesting segment on Malls and the top two companies.
Something to think about from that story: In the US there is currently 20 Square feet of retail space per person. Are we in trouble as an industry and or society?
in the book deathwish, the protaganist was an accountant not an architect. the profession was changed to appear more exciting you can look it up on wikipedia. so the victim to vigilante model is the new model. fucking great. perhaps we should look at charles bronson's character in the great escape. seems more optimistic.
billings did not hit an all-time low. it was an all-time low for the limited period for which records have been maintained.
note inquiries increased in january. this is normal and happens every year regardless of business climate. with no explanation, an uptick in busniess conditions seems to occur in western and midwestern states. our firm has noticed an increase in bottom-fishing. a number of new faces have appeared at our doors seeking small fees for small projects.
on a bright note. a local structural engineering practice that specializes in custom residences ranging from $2M and up informs us business is booming - 12 hour works days and no end in sight...for now. another structural engineer who also specializes in this market and is a sole proprietor is starving.
please do not misconstrue my comments about charles bronson. he represented characters with attitude and that is what is essential in surviving todays economic crisis. cheer up!
been here before. went month to month barely paying three-month old mortgage payment, irs after me for failure to pay taxes. do you have any idea what owing over $20,000 on credit cards in the 1980s was like? drove a junker for a year and did all repairs myself. only luxury was beer on saturday night. odd contract jobs for architects and engineers and subcontractors. was within one or two days several times of finally packing it in, sending keys to the bank, and going back home to momma, family and all. WE WON!!!
here's a question for all those of us who've been here in past recessions and have had the misfortune of being laid off by hard pressed or heartless employers ...how long has it taken architects and designers to typically regain employment and get back to a normal underpaid, overworked life again...
underpaid being the key words here, I doubt that architects have the depth of savings to last more than a few months....
your point will be hashed out ad nauseum, but if this were a 'normal' recession, we might start seeing an uptick in work this summer.
this isn't a normal recession - the underlying fundamentals, especially in the financial sector, are so badly wrenched from their normal positions that recovery will be very slow and longer than normal. at best, most of the smart guys in the room think it will be into 2010 before there are any signs of real recovery. and, that's if the administration can figure a way through the quagmire related to writing down the 'bad' assets from the banks before we start to see a new wave of good people and companies hit their stretching point and begin another wave of defaults.
if you have some time, read through 'the world is curved' by david smick. it's as good a read about how we got into this mess (and one that is remarkably partisan free) and how he thinks we may get out. (hint - it ain't going to be easy).
Minimal - it's not just architects that have a long uphill climb back to where they once were. I have a friend who works as a design engineer on circuit boards, electronics stuff. He's been paid very well but like Architects, often got meager 3-5% raises even in good times. The difference is he started about double where most architects do. Anyway, 25% pay cut for him. If thinks pick up next year, he's looking at at least 5 years to get back to where he was. Ouch.
got word today one of our project will not be coming back - ever. the client (resort developer) closed their office in Dubai and laid off everyone working in that office.
Just got laid off today from a 20 person firm in Northern VA would have been there 2 years next month. They cut 20% of their workforce - 4 of us for those who would rather not do the math.
They were hemorrhaging money though bad CA contracts (not enough fee for the time required) and poor time estimating (they ended up over budget on many jobs through constant staffing changes and poor managers) and to top it off just lost a cash cow client who had been keeping them alive for years.
Not that it does any good, but does anyone know of any opportunities in the DC metro area? My resume is at my blog.
GDP wasn't really growing. People were cashing out their houses and using the money to buy SUVs. The kind of investments being made were not worthy of the cost. Our infrastructure in the USA is a joke compared to Japan and Western Europe. We bankrupted the country for SUVs and McMansions.
many architectural firms lose money during construction administration. contractors eat them alive. they hope a handshake with the contractor, flashy smile, and glib talk will protect them from piss-poor construction documents. no matter how good the design you cannot make a silk purse from a sows ear. as a profession we often focus more energy on creating pretty pictures than doing a good job representing our clients. the number of rfis, change orders, and construction claims has steadily increased in the past two decades.
make: i appreciate your frustration but, i do not think that the case. all of the suvs and mcmansions created jobs. money flowed from bank to contractor to shops to other workers. it did trickle down! the issue from where did the money trickle down.
for what should we have sold our future? electric cars? don't forget the large electric grid powered by nuclear energy that will be required! european or japanese-like infrastructure? america has an entirely different heritage and requires a different vision than models in other countries. models which, work well in dense urbanized countries with very different cultures.
They created white elephants and we will spend the next 30 years paying for them. These are not working assets. Working assets are ones that pay dividends. The SUVs are too expensive to run and the million dollar shit boxes that got built are worth $400k.
How many new ghettos have we created?
And the nuclear thing is a Fox news talking point and has no bearing in reality.
Martini is making a very common mistake - all spending is not equal. Tax and policies and government regulation influence the cost of consumer goods. Take the SUV...
How much does gasoline cost?
What is the total cost of ownership of the SUV?
Gasoline is subsidized greatly in the United States through the Defense Department. The war in Iraq is $10 billion a month. The price of keeping a carrier group near the Gulf is probably $1 billion a year. So add that up and you're over $120 billion in taxes we pay to subsidize the price of gas to encourage the sale of an SUV.
The SUV itself has found its value diluted and is too expensive to operate in an environment where gas is $3 a gallon. Add the US military subsidy into the mix and it gets really expensive.
The McMansion? What is we gave tax credits to increase density and encourage passive heating and cooling? What if there were a carbon tax on housing?
When markets operate under such influences they become distorted and they crash. That's what happened.
Imagine if the USA had spent $2 or $3 trillion on energy efficient, sensible housing located close to mass transit and within walking distance to shopping and entertainment? And because of our tax incentives, we led teh world in zero carbon technology?
The SUVs and the McMansions are to us what Inca and Aztec gold was to the 16th century Spanish. They make us drunk with false wealth and when we wake up and realize it, the rest of the world will have long passed us by.
S.Lepler - that sucks - hang in there... it sounds like you were working for a poorly managed firm anyway, and maybe it's for the best.
+i - have you heard about the massive amount of people who are fleeing dubai? apparently the airport is having a huge problem with abandoned cars - we're talking thousands of abandoned cars...
I've heard about the abandoned cars in Dubai. Over in those parts you get your ass thrown in debtors prision. Maybe we should have something similar here in the states. I could name some Wall Street fat cats that leveraged their firms up past 40:1 that could use a few years in a federal pound me in the ass prision.
Hmmm.... It just so happens, I am in need of a free car....
All kidding aside. Sorry about the news, SLepler. I know of the firm you're referring to (from seeing it in your folio). It does sound like they have some serious management issues. This has been a problem for many firms for a while and only now it's starting to become evident with the recession in full-swing.
DC is really hurting right now with virtually all firms having gone through some kind of staff reduction. I even know of at least two firms that have completely shut their doors. And a few firms are just waiting for the axe to fall. It's crazy because many would have though that there is a certain sense of stability and even invincibility here but that just isn't the case. Things were thriving here for a while mainly due to the craze of mix-use, multifamily residential, and urban infill projects and you can still see construction everywhere of that caliber from projects that were designed in the mid 00s. Up until only a decade ago, DC and the metro area was vastly underdeveloped. For example, you can see most of the development that has taken place in places like Arlington and parts of Northwest and Northeast DC have only been within that decade. Entire new cities were practically re-born too (see, Virginia Square, Ballston, Reston, etc). Again, this was all due to the high demand of mix-use projects. Now things in DC have become way too expensive because of severe price-gouging on just about everything. And because of that you see many brand new condo buildings with about half their capacity. I just saw a sign for the new Newseum Condos practically begging people to even rent their units at relatively reasonable prices all because they just couldn't sell. It's a shame because DC could still use A LOT of development.
As for firms in DC that may be hiring, it's tough to say. There are firms out there looking for talent but they are few and highly coveted. My firm is on a hiring freeze that was implemented in January. There was a job fair recently at the school I went to and some of the firms from DC were there -- some of the names were actually rather shocking. But I'm not sure whether this was just for appearances or if they were truly serious about recruiting people.
toasteroven- i hadn't heard about that. i'm going to look into it though. when designing a hotel there's an owner and an operator- both are our clients. the operator is in another part of the world, but it was the owner who shut their Dubai office. what i have heard is that *typically* it is during recessions that hotels work for the next rebound, so that the nicest/best hotels are already built by the time the economy turns around. looks like this is not typical, and that Dubai is failing...
as for the other financial side conversation- it's really ironic to me how passionate and informed (or uninformed) everyone seems to be about the whole economy. most architects i know barely know how to change mutual funds in their 401k on their own (not just the retirement based year fund), and even fewer have ever daytraded. i've met more lawyers and doctors and computer engineers who have done more daytrading versus architects.
rick santelli disqualified himself with his ignorant comments about prerevolutionary cuba, making an assumption that it was a representative democracy with a strong middle class instead of a dictatorship propped up by foreign corporations and the mafia. look it up on wikipedia.
Archmed... I just searched for those Newseum apartments (because I think they're pretty hot and I was personaly curious)- a 1bdrm 1bth apartment for $2000/month and a 2bdrm 2bth apartment there goes for $4300/month?!?!?!!!
That is insanely expensive. That is a hefty mortgage payment.
In most brand new condos-turned-apartments you could have a 2 level penthouse for that price around here (with stainless steel, loft-style, granite, slate, etc). And that price wasn't even for the penthouse at the Newseum- that was an "introductory" price, so inevitably it will go up- or the one you want costs more.
This is part of the underlying problem in DC. I understand the proximity in a downtown area, capitol, museums, etc. But seriously... it's still ONLY DC. There is no beach, just a toxic river. The area isn't all that spectacular. There's tons of rats (both literal and figurative). And now it seems the jobs here are few and far between. For all that I would rather live in San Francisco or Hawaii, or ... I could list a dozen other places.
Somehow the prices haven't become even remotely affordable. Even after all of this.
"here's a question for all those of us who've been here in past recessions and have had the misfortune of being laid off by hard pressed or heartless employers ...how long has it taken architects and designers to typically regain employment and get back to a normal underpaid, overworked life again...
underpaid being the key words here, I doubt that architects have the depth of savings to last more than a few months...."
No one really answered the question...It will help all of us to know what the historical time frame of regaining employment has been in past recessions. I know it will help me. So please refrain from using CNN-esque rhetoric and throw out some numbers from your experience.
+i, that's what it says on their website but I was talking about the actual banner at the Newseum that advertised leases on 1-bedroom apts for $1700 (I still cant afford that but all things considered, it isn't bad). I toured them back in April (just for my own interest pretending like I could afford one) and the going rate for that same place was $2500 per month. You're right they ARE pretty hot as is the actual Newseum itself.
I know a person who worked on that project at Polshek who said that the idea was that the owner wanted to sell all of them -- particularly to Capitol Hill staff and people like that -- yeah good luck with that buddy.
I take the Metro to work every morning and read the express. I always see killer deals in the apartments rentals section. My place is outrageous and that's primarily because I got it in 2007 when the economy was rolling. Recently though, I've been looking at some places in Clarendon and Rosslyn and there are some surprisingly phenomenal deals. I'm seriously thinking about moving but I just don't want to sign a 1-year lease. You can probably imagine why.
minimal - it's less a ducking of your question than there is no recent historical precedent that has any relevance to what we're going through.
in the early 90's, it took 18 months to recover. the big swoon started in early to mid 1990 and lasted through all of 91 - recovery started in '92 and was mostly readjusted by the end '92. does that mean the arch field was back to 'full capacity'? no, but the economy had stabilized overall and was on more of an upswing.
now.... it's just a whole different animal. if the recession officially began in december 07, if we were following a cycle closer to the 90's, we would have bottomed out around now and would be stabilizing. we might be back to more 'normal' conditions towards the end of this year. in fact, in early '08, that was the overall thinking.
the collapse of lehman changed all of that - it so fundamentally spooked the banking and financial sector that their subsequent contraction/freeze has probably extended the recession by another 12-18 months and will make it much deeper and longer lasting than expected (really, we can debate whether lehman alone did that, but what their collapse did was indicate that the fed's would indeed allow the largest firms to fail if it saw fit. it didn't change the underlying problems in the economy).
the fed reserve chairman said this morning that if (and it's a huge, get on your knees and pray 'if') the actions the government are taking now work, then he thinks we'll bottom out at the end of this year and 2010 will be the beginning of the recovery. if the 'if' doesn't pan out, we may have a much larger issue on our hands and the economy may be in the doldrums for much of the next 5 years.
so, hopefully that gave you some answers: if it all goes well, we may be back to 'normal' by the end of 2010 (although 'normal' won't be anywhere near the full capacity the profession was at in '06 - i'm predicting we'll permanently contract overall by 10%, even after the general economy recovers). i see most of the larger firms doing primarily private development work (of whatever stripe) shedding another 10-25% of their staff as those kinds of projects will not come back in force enough to maintain their current positions. firms that do larger scale e/a projects will do better than most. smaller firms with a very vocal and specific environmental niche may actually do well and could expand a bit this year. those firms, though, simply won't create enough work to absorb the losses elsewhere in the industry. i'd expect, in most cases, that a typical corporate architecture employee will have a hard time finding another job in architecture for the remainder of this year at least.
minimal - in the 2001-2002 recession, it took me about 6 months to find a job. the other couple times I've been laid off I've only been unemployed for a few weeks.
last week I was talking with someone who had been working since the early 80s... in the late 80s, early 90s, he said it took him 2 years to find stable work in architecture. He said he did find some work during that period, but it was only for a month or two at a time.
It seems that based on historical evidence, no one should EVER vote a republican into any kind of office ever again.
Just don't vote republican. That's all there is to it. They fuck everything up and then try to hide behind their whole "Christian values" bullshit in order not to be prone to any kind of public antagonism and scorn.
I have a one bedroom condo out in Centreville which I share with my partner, and we pay over $2000 a month including condo fees.
When we bought 2 years ago, this was the least expensive thing we could find. We were paying $1200 a month for an apartment on the south end of alexandria that had not been renovated since 1950.
Archmed, I agree mostly with your partisan statement I believe the US Senators and Representatives who happen to be Republican are working against the best interest of the nation as a whole right now. I remember the Republican senator from Iowa arguing that the emergency Medicare funding should be distributed equally to each state. This is nuts since the needs are based on population. I will take exception to the notion that all republicans are stupid, this is not true Republicans can make great dog catchers and state comptrollers.
I can only Imagine what would have happened if Pailin McCain were elected? How would Wall Street react to Joe the Plumber becoming the nation’s top economic advisor? Democrats are completely capable of screwing things up royally, don’t forget Kennedy started the Vietnam War and Nixon ended it.
Ben Bernaki is and Alan Greenspan should be tarred and feathered. What we need at the FED is Rick Santelli or someone with actual financial smarts, not theoretical smarts.
i have a 2bdrm 2bth condo-turned-apartment which is brand new in alexandria. $2275/month (not including electric, and we must have a certain amount of renter's insurance). it takes roughly 30-40 minutes to get to work in DC (door to door) and i take metro.
to pay $4300/month for a 2bd 2bth is crazy.
the only apartment i have ever had here that was under $1k was a 550sq foot studio apartment in Arlington near the pentagon.
a $360,000 mortgage at 5.5% is only $2377/month. check out Zillow.com and see what you can get for that in any other market.
as for the express ads... there are WAYYY more sketchy areas around here than good areas. either that, or the building hasn't been updated since the 70s or worse.
"To pay for the massive stimulus plan, bank bailout and other spending, the government is taking on a record amount of debt, issued in the form of government bonds. If no one buys this debt, it could push up interest rates and increase how much you pay for loans on homes, cars and credit cards."
truman and eisenhower were propping up the french forces in vietnam long before kennedy came into the picture. christ, in '54 the u.s. offered france "nuculer" weapons to go after the chinese-proppsed vietnamese forces. kennedy escalated it.
nixon only ended it because had he not promised to, he might not have beat mcgovern. my lai and the international outrage over massive amounts of civilians being murdered by the u.s. didn't help. after the u.s. pullout, nixon kept funding the south vietnamese. all the while maintaining the possibility of sending troops back in.
here's a question for all those of us who've been here in past recessions and have had the misfortune of being laid off by hard pressed or heartless employers ...how long has it taken architects and designers to typically regain employment and get back to a normal underpaid, overworked life again...
Most of the principals I've worked for were starting out in the mid-to-late 1970's downturn. That's probably the closest any practicing architect has come to what we're seeing today. They have all talked about how getting registered was a top priority since you could "hang your shingle." Oddly enough I know of several local firms that were started about 30 years ago, which seems to indicate that was true. I've also heard stories from principals about how large percentages of their peers went into related fields ~ sales, gov't building/planning dept's, etc.
Point is, I don't think there is a time period to "regain" employment. The hard pill to swallow is that you might just have to go it on your own to even stay in the traditional architecture profession. You'll probably have to consider an alternate career for the time being if you wish to work for someone else. Many who do that will probably never return to traditional architecture. There are signals this economy is far worse than late 70's stagflation. Not to be a pessimist, but it's time to bunker down.
Dubs and I just bought the Kentucky Cave Lair to survive the economic apocalypse. We each have two shotguns and a cadre of wild chimpanzees at our disposal, and if you trespass we'll give them all Xanax...
have already begun to see signs from heretofore unknown architectural firms posted on smaller projects. today saw one on a house addition and another on a commercial renovation. designs appear interesting.
Mossberg 500 Cruiser
M4 Carbine
AK-107, just in case
Colt Model 1908 Pocket Hammerless .380 ACP (two)
outed, you still ducked the question...not that I want to put you on the spot... you included many valid observations in your post but you still evaded the question.
toasteroven...thanks for the straightforward answer...it helps...hope all of us have very short down times in our careers...especially now...
aqua, there is some truth to your observation....getting licensed is a good thing at any time, good or bad...I'm from another country, where I'm licensed to practice, and am trying to get these weird, vague, frustrating ARE exams finished to actually get the right to call myself something that I've been doing on a daily basis for the last decade...
SOM just had layoffs in Shanghai (right after a big project finished too...). Arup is having layoffs in London and Australia to my knowledge --- but arup promises to keep hiring recent grads. (they're smart enough to know that otherwise there will be a talent drought in the firm later, if they dont...)
minimal - no offense taken. i'm not sure there is that direct of an answer - a lot depends on the individual, their experience, etc. maybe to make a more direct guess.... 24 months from now? i just don't see the overall economy recovering enough before then to support more 'normal' hiring practices across the whole industry. some areas will come back more quickly, others are going to take years to recover. hirings (and firings) will be made accordingly.
let me rephrase it this way - if it took 18-24 months for an average unemployed architect to find steady work during the early 90's recession, you can add at least another year to that number for this time around.
minmal, as outed said, there is no "answer". Everyone can tell you their experiences (my own last slowdown was 6 months of reduced salary within an 18 month general scary slowdown - that passed with a bang as suddenly a bunch of new jobs came in all at once), but nobody knows what this recession holds. It's ALL speculation.
evilp is proposing Greenspan is a theorist and Santelli isn't, but the truth is economics is *all* theory. Every economic study can be turned on its head by how one decides to analyze it statistically. In my opinion, architecture relies FAR more on fact than economics does. Far more. Economics is in large part luck.
What I'm hearing mostly, from various places, is that 2009 will be bad all through, getting worse over the year but at a slower rate than it has in the last 4 months. In 2010 things may start to look up again. But anything at all could change that: terrorist destruction of on an oil refinery, outbreak of Avian Flu, another Katrina, alien attack. Boy that last one could sure make our planet seem like one big happy family suddenly, eh? ;-)
Layoffs....layoffs......
thanks liberty bell, i've been holding onto it for a while... long time lurker
Under bush, deficit spending as %of GDP went up to 2004, then progresively lowered to below the last 40 year average. Meaning he was spending less than average, even with 2 wars and tax cuts because GDP was growing. The total debt grew because yes while he was lowering the rate of deficit spending he was still deficit spending. Only Clinton managed to provide a surplus but that to is misleading since He ruled over an astounding 22% growth in GDP much due to the tech inflation which popped in 2000, and severe tax increases for small and mid-size businesses. Really all in all Bush was no different as a spender than any of the others. Clinton to also had intergovernmental transfers to help the deficit number, which is not really income. We are doing the same thing again.
Heres the stats fromt he G
2000 2008 % Increase
Total Debt (dollars) $5,628.7B $9,654.4B 72%
Held by Public ($) $3,409.8B $5,428.6B 59%
Total Debt (%GDP) 58.0% 67.5% 16%
Held by Public (%GDP) 35.1% 37.9% 8%
Measured in nominal dollars, the dollar value of the debt rose 72%, but that doesnt account for GDP growth and Population boom and inflation or the evil lurker - intergovernmental obligations - money we owe ourselves already - specifically the social security fund.
The real debt increase everyone is talking about held by the tax payers, Japan, China et all is the last line - 8%.
half-decent article on layoffs in most recent issue of architect. showcases several youngish forlorn idealistic types.
online article on decline of economy in eastern europe quoted someone, "it is not that bad. we've been through worse before."
brought back memories of two senior persons who took me under their wings many years ago.
vincent was a refugee and a promising young architect in pre-war lithuania. soviets rolled in and packed him off to siberia. released in 1956 or so, he made his way to america where he became the top detailer for a very large pre-eminent architectural firm. in those days the profession had real senior draftsman who really could detail. every working drawing he did was a work of art.
bernie was born in brooklyn and left when drafted into the army prior to the korean war. he had not finished his education and never obtained a degree. said he was at pusan. you can look that place up in the wikipedia. returning home he needed a job and found something as a draftsman. worked his way up to be the best. knew every major architect by first name.
go rent some charles bronson movies, death wish included, get a new attitude, and kick some ass beginning with yours first.
On NPR’s Morning Edition they had an interesting segment on Malls and the top two companies.
Something to think about from that story: In the US there is currently 20 Square feet of retail space per person. Are we in trouble as an industry and or society?
in the book deathwish, the protaganist was an accountant not an architect. the profession was changed to appear more exciting you can look it up on wikipedia. so the victim to vigilante model is the new model. fucking great. perhaps we should look at charles bronson's character in the great escape. seems more optimistic.
billings did not hit an all-time low. it was an all-time low for the limited period for which records have been maintained.
note inquiries increased in january. this is normal and happens every year regardless of business climate. with no explanation, an uptick in busniess conditions seems to occur in western and midwestern states. our firm has noticed an increase in bottom-fishing. a number of new faces have appeared at our doors seeking small fees for small projects.
on a bright note. a local structural engineering practice that specializes in custom residences ranging from $2M and up informs us business is booming - 12 hour works days and no end in sight...for now. another structural engineer who also specializes in this market and is a sole proprietor is starving.
please do not misconstrue my comments about charles bronson. he represented characters with attitude and that is what is essential in surviving todays economic crisis. cheer up!
been here before. went month to month barely paying three-month old mortgage payment, irs after me for failure to pay taxes. do you have any idea what owing over $20,000 on credit cards in the 1980s was like? drove a junker for a year and did all repairs myself. only luxury was beer on saturday night. odd contract jobs for architects and engineers and subcontractors. was within one or two days several times of finally packing it in, sending keys to the bank, and going back home to momma, family and all. WE WON!!!
I just heard from a friend that he was put on unpaid "on-call" status. Are you kidding? Lay the guy off so he can at least claim un-employment!
here's a question for all those of us who've been here in past recessions and have had the misfortune of being laid off by hard pressed or heartless employers ...how long has it taken architects and designers to typically regain employment and get back to a normal underpaid, overworked life again...
underpaid being the key words here, I doubt that architects have the depth of savings to last more than a few months....
minimal,
your point will be hashed out ad nauseum, but if this were a 'normal' recession, we might start seeing an uptick in work this summer.
this isn't a normal recession - the underlying fundamentals, especially in the financial sector, are so badly wrenched from their normal positions that recovery will be very slow and longer than normal. at best, most of the smart guys in the room think it will be into 2010 before there are any signs of real recovery. and, that's if the administration can figure a way through the quagmire related to writing down the 'bad' assets from the banks before we start to see a new wave of good people and companies hit their stretching point and begin another wave of defaults.
if you have some time, read through 'the world is curved' by david smick. it's as good a read about how we got into this mess (and one that is remarkably partisan free) and how he thinks we may get out. (hint - it ain't going to be easy).
Minimal - it's not just architects that have a long uphill climb back to where they once were. I have a friend who works as a design engineer on circuit boards, electronics stuff. He's been paid very well but like Architects, often got meager 3-5% raises even in good times. The difference is he started about double where most architects do. Anyway, 25% pay cut for him. If thinks pick up next year, he's looking at at least 5 years to get back to where he was. Ouch.
I come back and read the latest posts in this thread every week or so. It bums me the heck out every time.
got word today one of our project will not be coming back - ever. the client (resort developer) closed their office in Dubai and laid off everyone working in that office.
"Meaning he was spending less than average, even with 2 wars and tax cuts because GDP was growing."
Evilp, the whole point is that at least one of the wars was unnecessary.
Just got laid off today from a 20 person firm in Northern VA would have been there 2 years next month. They cut 20% of their workforce - 4 of us for those who would rather not do the math.
They were hemorrhaging money though bad CA contracts (not enough fee for the time required) and poor time estimating (they ended up over budget on many jobs through constant staffing changes and poor managers) and to top it off just lost a cash cow client who had been keeping them alive for years.
Not that it does any good, but does anyone know of any opportunities in the DC metro area? My resume is at my blog.
GDP wasn't really growing. People were cashing out their houses and using the money to buy SUVs. The kind of investments being made were not worthy of the cost. Our infrastructure in the USA is a joke compared to Japan and Western Europe. We bankrupted the country for SUVs and McMansions.
We were like the native Americans who took the $23 in trinkets for the island of Manhattan. We sold our future for a bunch of shit.
many architectural firms lose money during construction administration. contractors eat them alive. they hope a handshake with the contractor, flashy smile, and glib talk will protect them from piss-poor construction documents. no matter how good the design you cannot make a silk purse from a sows ear. as a profession we often focus more energy on creating pretty pictures than doing a good job representing our clients. the number of rfis, change orders, and construction claims has steadily increased in the past two decades.
make: i appreciate your frustration but, i do not think that the case. all of the suvs and mcmansions created jobs. money flowed from bank to contractor to shops to other workers. it did trickle down! the issue from where did the money trickle down.
for what should we have sold our future? electric cars? don't forget the large electric grid powered by nuclear energy that will be required! european or japanese-like infrastructure? america has an entirely different heritage and requires a different vision than models in other countries. models which, work well in dense urbanized countries with very different cultures.
the 21st century tea party has begun.
see the video of rick santelli on cnbc (hardly fox!)
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1039849853
BULLSHIT
They created white elephants and we will spend the next 30 years paying for them. These are not working assets. Working assets are ones that pay dividends. The SUVs are too expensive to run and the million dollar shit boxes that got built are worth $400k.
How many new ghettos have we created?
And the nuclear thing is a Fox news talking point and has no bearing in reality.
Look at Ausra's web site.
Rick has a few problems with his argument.
Martini is making a very common mistake - all spending is not equal. Tax and policies and government regulation influence the cost of consumer goods. Take the SUV...
How much does gasoline cost?
What is the total cost of ownership of the SUV?
Gasoline is subsidized greatly in the United States through the Defense Department. The war in Iraq is $10 billion a month. The price of keeping a carrier group near the Gulf is probably $1 billion a year. So add that up and you're over $120 billion in taxes we pay to subsidize the price of gas to encourage the sale of an SUV.
The SUV itself has found its value diluted and is too expensive to operate in an environment where gas is $3 a gallon. Add the US military subsidy into the mix and it gets really expensive.
The McMansion? What is we gave tax credits to increase density and encourage passive heating and cooling? What if there were a carbon tax on housing?
When markets operate under such influences they become distorted and they crash. That's what happened.
Imagine if the USA had spent $2 or $3 trillion on energy efficient, sensible housing located close to mass transit and within walking distance to shopping and entertainment? And because of our tax incentives, we led teh world in zero carbon technology?
The SUVs and the McMansions are to us what Inca and Aztec gold was to the 16th century Spanish. They make us drunk with false wealth and when we wake up and realize it, the rest of the world will have long passed us by.
S.Lepler - that sucks - hang in there... it sounds like you were working for a poorly managed firm anyway, and maybe it's for the best.
+i - have you heard about the massive amount of people who are fleeing dubai? apparently the airport is having a huge problem with abandoned cars - we're talking thousands of abandoned cars...
I've heard about the abandoned cars in Dubai. Over in those parts you get your ass thrown in debtors prision. Maybe we should have something similar here in the states. I could name some Wall Street fat cats that leveraged their firms up past 40:1 that could use a few years in a federal pound me in the ass prision.
Hmmm.... It just so happens, I am in need of a free car....
All kidding aside. Sorry about the news, SLepler. I know of the firm you're referring to (from seeing it in your folio). It does sound like they have some serious management issues. This has been a problem for many firms for a while and only now it's starting to become evident with the recession in full-swing.
DC is really hurting right now with virtually all firms having gone through some kind of staff reduction. I even know of at least two firms that have completely shut their doors. And a few firms are just waiting for the axe to fall. It's crazy because many would have though that there is a certain sense of stability and even invincibility here but that just isn't the case. Things were thriving here for a while mainly due to the craze of mix-use, multifamily residential, and urban infill projects and you can still see construction everywhere of that caliber from projects that were designed in the mid 00s. Up until only a decade ago, DC and the metro area was vastly underdeveloped. For example, you can see most of the development that has taken place in places like Arlington and parts of Northwest and Northeast DC have only been within that decade. Entire new cities were practically re-born too (see, Virginia Square, Ballston, Reston, etc). Again, this was all due to the high demand of mix-use projects. Now things in DC have become way too expensive because of severe price-gouging on just about everything. And because of that you see many brand new condo buildings with about half their capacity. I just saw a sign for the new Newseum Condos practically begging people to even rent their units at relatively reasonable prices all because they just couldn't sell. It's a shame because DC could still use A LOT of development.
As for firms in DC that may be hiring, it's tough to say. There are firms out there looking for talent but they are few and highly coveted. My firm is on a hiring freeze that was implemented in January. There was a job fair recently at the school I went to and some of the firms from DC were there -- some of the names were actually rather shocking. But I'm not sure whether this was just for appearances or if they were truly serious about recruiting people.
Good luck to you!
toasteroven- i hadn't heard about that. i'm going to look into it though. when designing a hotel there's an owner and an operator- both are our clients. the operator is in another part of the world, but it was the owner who shut their Dubai office. what i have heard is that *typically* it is during recessions that hotels work for the next rebound, so that the nicest/best hotels are already built by the time the economy turns around. looks like this is not typical, and that Dubai is failing...
as for the other financial side conversation- it's really ironic to me how passionate and informed (or uninformed) everyone seems to be about the whole economy. most architects i know barely know how to change mutual funds in their 401k on their own (not just the retirement based year fund), and even fewer have ever daytraded. i've met more lawyers and doctors and computer engineers who have done more daytrading versus architects.
The firm I joined in September of 08 has laid off more than 40% of its staff since I got here.
the fleeing of Dubai...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/world/middleeast/12dubai.html?_r=1&ref=business
and on the Diane Rehm show: U.S. Shadow Banking System
rick santelli disqualified himself with his ignorant comments about prerevolutionary cuba, making an assumption that it was a representative democracy with a strong middle class instead of a dictatorship propped up by foreign corporations and the mafia. look it up on wikipedia.
Archmed... I just searched for those Newseum apartments (because I think they're pretty hot and I was personaly curious)- a 1bdrm 1bth apartment for $2000/month and a 2bdrm 2bth apartment there goes for $4300/month?!?!?!!!
That is insanely expensive. That is a hefty mortgage payment.
In most brand new condos-turned-apartments you could have a 2 level penthouse for that price around here (with stainless steel, loft-style, granite, slate, etc). And that price wasn't even for the penthouse at the Newseum- that was an "introductory" price, so inevitably it will go up- or the one you want costs more.
This is part of the underlying problem in DC. I understand the proximity in a downtown area, capitol, museums, etc. But seriously... it's still ONLY DC. There is no beach, just a toxic river. The area isn't all that spectacular. There's tons of rats (both literal and figurative). And now it seems the jobs here are few and far between. For all that I would rather live in San Francisco or Hawaii, or ... I could list a dozen other places.
Somehow the prices haven't become even remotely affordable. Even after all of this.
Rick Santelli is right
"here's a question for all those of us who've been here in past recessions and have had the misfortune of being laid off by hard pressed or heartless employers ...how long has it taken architects and designers to typically regain employment and get back to a normal underpaid, overworked life again...
underpaid being the key words here, I doubt that architects have the depth of savings to last more than a few months...."
No one really answered the question...It will help all of us to know what the historical time frame of regaining employment has been in past recessions. I know it will help me. So please refrain from using CNN-esque rhetoric and throw out some numbers from your experience.
Anyone ?
+i, that's what it says on their website but I was talking about the actual banner at the Newseum that advertised leases on 1-bedroom apts for $1700 (I still cant afford that but all things considered, it isn't bad). I toured them back in April (just for my own interest pretending like I could afford one) and the going rate for that same place was $2500 per month. You're right they ARE pretty hot as is the actual Newseum itself.
I know a person who worked on that project at Polshek who said that the idea was that the owner wanted to sell all of them -- particularly to Capitol Hill staff and people like that -- yeah good luck with that buddy.
I take the Metro to work every morning and read the express. I always see killer deals in the apartments rentals section. My place is outrageous and that's primarily because I got it in 2007 when the economy was rolling. Recently though, I've been looking at some places in Clarendon and Rosslyn and there are some surprisingly phenomenal deals. I'm seriously thinking about moving but I just don't want to sign a 1-year lease. You can probably imagine why.
minimal - it's less a ducking of your question than there is no recent historical precedent that has any relevance to what we're going through.
in the early 90's, it took 18 months to recover. the big swoon started in early to mid 1990 and lasted through all of 91 - recovery started in '92 and was mostly readjusted by the end '92. does that mean the arch field was back to 'full capacity'? no, but the economy had stabilized overall and was on more of an upswing.
now.... it's just a whole different animal. if the recession officially began in december 07, if we were following a cycle closer to the 90's, we would have bottomed out around now and would be stabilizing. we might be back to more 'normal' conditions towards the end of this year. in fact, in early '08, that was the overall thinking.
the collapse of lehman changed all of that - it so fundamentally spooked the banking and financial sector that their subsequent contraction/freeze has probably extended the recession by another 12-18 months and will make it much deeper and longer lasting than expected (really, we can debate whether lehman alone did that, but what their collapse did was indicate that the fed's would indeed allow the largest firms to fail if it saw fit. it didn't change the underlying problems in the economy).
the fed reserve chairman said this morning that if (and it's a huge, get on your knees and pray 'if') the actions the government are taking now work, then he thinks we'll bottom out at the end of this year and 2010 will be the beginning of the recovery. if the 'if' doesn't pan out, we may have a much larger issue on our hands and the economy may be in the doldrums for much of the next 5 years.
so, hopefully that gave you some answers: if it all goes well, we may be back to 'normal' by the end of 2010 (although 'normal' won't be anywhere near the full capacity the profession was at in '06 - i'm predicting we'll permanently contract overall by 10%, even after the general economy recovers). i see most of the larger firms doing primarily private development work (of whatever stripe) shedding another 10-25% of their staff as those kinds of projects will not come back in force enough to maintain their current positions. firms that do larger scale e/a projects will do better than most. smaller firms with a very vocal and specific environmental niche may actually do well and could expand a bit this year. those firms, though, simply won't create enough work to absorb the losses elsewhere in the industry. i'd expect, in most cases, that a typical corporate architecture employee will have a hard time finding another job in architecture for the remainder of this year at least.
there are DC architects that pay more than $1000/mo for rent?
and i thought i had it bad...
After greenspan why would anyone listen to a fed chairman?
minimal - in the 2001-2002 recession, it took me about 6 months to find a job. the other couple times I've been laid off I've only been unemployed for a few weeks.
last week I was talking with someone who had been working since the early 80s... in the late 80s, early 90s, he said it took him 2 years to find stable work in architecture. He said he did find some work during that period, but it was only for a month or two at a time.
This is going to be a rough year....
It seems that based on historical evidence, no one should EVER vote a republican into any kind of office ever again.
Just don't vote republican. That's all there is to it. They fuck everything up and then try to hide behind their whole "Christian values" bullshit in order not to be prone to any kind of public antagonism and scorn.
I have a one bedroom condo out in Centreville which I share with my partner, and we pay over $2000 a month including condo fees.
When we bought 2 years ago, this was the least expensive thing we could find. We were paying $1200 a month for an apartment on the south end of alexandria that had not been renovated since 1950.
Archmed, I agree mostly with your partisan statement I believe the US Senators and Representatives who happen to be Republican are working against the best interest of the nation as a whole right now. I remember the Republican senator from Iowa arguing that the emergency Medicare funding should be distributed equally to each state. This is nuts since the needs are based on population. I will take exception to the notion that all republicans are stupid, this is not true Republicans can make great dog catchers and state comptrollers.
I can only Imagine what would have happened if Pailin McCain were elected? How would Wall Street react to Joe the Plumber becoming the nation’s top economic advisor? Democrats are completely capable of screwing things up royally, don’t forget Kennedy started the Vietnam War and Nixon ended it.
Ben Bernaki is and Alan Greenspan should be tarred and feathered. What we need at the FED is Rick Santelli or someone with actual financial smarts, not theoretical smarts.
i have a 2bdrm 2bth condo-turned-apartment which is brand new in alexandria. $2275/month (not including electric, and we must have a certain amount of renter's insurance). it takes roughly 30-40 minutes to get to work in DC (door to door) and i take metro.
to pay $4300/month for a 2bd 2bth is crazy.
the only apartment i have ever had here that was under $1k was a 550sq foot studio apartment in Arlington near the pentagon.
a $360,000 mortgage at 5.5% is only $2377/month. check out Zillow.com and see what you can get for that in any other market.
as for the express ads... there are WAYYY more sketchy areas around here than good areas. either that, or the building hasn't been updated since the 70s or worse.
"To pay for the massive stimulus plan, bank bailout and other spending, the government is taking on a record amount of debt, issued in the form of government bonds. If no one buys this debt, it could push up interest rates and increase how much you pay for loans on homes, cars and credit cards."
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/24/news/economy/stimulus_debt/index.htm?postversion=2009022414
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/business/economy/19debt.html
kennedy didn't start the vietnam war.
truman and eisenhower were propping up the french forces in vietnam long before kennedy came into the picture. christ, in '54 the u.s. offered france "nuculer" weapons to go after the chinese-proppsed vietnamese forces. kennedy escalated it.
nixon only ended it because had he not promised to, he might not have beat mcgovern. my lai and the international outrage over massive amounts of civilians being murdered by the u.s. didn't help. after the u.s. pullout, nixon kept funding the south vietnamese. all the while maintaining the possibility of sending troops back in.
Most of the principals I've worked for were starting out in the mid-to-late 1970's downturn. That's probably the closest any practicing architect has come to what we're seeing today. They have all talked about how getting registered was a top priority since you could "hang your shingle." Oddly enough I know of several local firms that were started about 30 years ago, which seems to indicate that was true. I've also heard stories from principals about how large percentages of their peers went into related fields ~ sales, gov't building/planning dept's, etc.
Point is, I don't think there is a time period to "regain" employment. The hard pill to swallow is that you might just have to go it on your own to even stay in the traditional architecture profession. You'll probably have to consider an alternate career for the time being if you wish to work for someone else. Many who do that will probably never return to traditional architecture. There are signals this economy is far worse than late 70's stagflation. Not to be a pessimist, but it's time to bunker down.
Dubs and I just bought the Kentucky Cave Lair to survive the economic apocalypse. We each have two shotguns and a cadre of wild chimpanzees at our disposal, and if you trespass we'll give them all Xanax...
have already begun to see signs from heretofore unknown architectural firms posted on smaller projects. today saw one on a house addition and another on a commercial renovation. designs appear interesting.
Mossberg 500 Cruiser
M4 Carbine
AK-107, just in case
Colt Model 1908 Pocket Hammerless .380 ACP (two)
two portable generators
CB radio
outed, you still ducked the question...not that I want to put you on the spot... you included many valid observations in your post but you still evaded the question.
toasteroven...thanks for the straightforward answer...it helps...hope all of us have very short down times in our careers...especially now...
aqua, there is some truth to your observation....getting licensed is a good thing at any time, good or bad...I'm from another country, where I'm licensed to practice, and am trying to get these weird, vague, frustrating ARE exams finished to actually get the right to call myself something that I've been doing on a daily basis for the last decade...
SOM just had layoffs in Shanghai (right after a big project finished too...). Arup is having layoffs in London and Australia to my knowledge --- but arup promises to keep hiring recent grads. (they're smart enough to know that otherwise there will be a talent drought in the firm later, if they dont...)
minimal - no offense taken. i'm not sure there is that direct of an answer - a lot depends on the individual, their experience, etc. maybe to make a more direct guess.... 24 months from now? i just don't see the overall economy recovering enough before then to support more 'normal' hiring practices across the whole industry. some areas will come back more quickly, others are going to take years to recover. hirings (and firings) will be made accordingly.
let me rephrase it this way - if it took 18-24 months for an average unemployed architect to find steady work during the early 90's recession, you can add at least another year to that number for this time around.
minmal, as outed said, there is no "answer". Everyone can tell you their experiences (my own last slowdown was 6 months of reduced salary within an 18 month general scary slowdown - that passed with a bang as suddenly a bunch of new jobs came in all at once), but nobody knows what this recession holds. It's ALL speculation.
evilp is proposing Greenspan is a theorist and Santelli isn't, but the truth is economics is *all* theory. Every economic study can be turned on its head by how one decides to analyze it statistically. In my opinion, architecture relies FAR more on fact than economics does. Far more. Economics is in large part luck.
What I'm hearing mostly, from various places, is that 2009 will be bad all through, getting worse over the year but at a slower rate than it has in the last 4 months. In 2010 things may start to look up again. But anything at all could change that: terrorist destruction of on an oil refinery, outbreak of Avian Flu, another Katrina, alien attack. Boy that last one could sure make our planet seem like one big happy family suddenly, eh? ;-)
LB - alien attack might just be the thing that turns the economy around.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.