When speculators are building like it's 2005 the next crash is imminent.
 

one revit operator can take the place of 6 men, 4 horses, and a mack truck

^ Revit ops don't build anything.

chigurh.....you forgot the 10 porta-potties    6+4=10

All across the spectrum. From young designer to old admin person (that was with the company for a long long time

Right now is a weird time to be involved in Architecture as a team member of a design team.  There's work,  then there's work on hold, work which is on and off. Its really hard to predict.  Whats really scary is that firms well known for hiring and then massively firing are really aggressively trying to hire people.  I personally think that is a bad sign because those firms hire up when there's is an artificial spike in our economy, then usually followed by massive layoffs.  So by that indicator things are not looking too good right now.

What you are witnessing is called the 'new norm', it has actually been smelling like this for several years... I am so use to it that I don't smell it anymore... well most sometimes...

I just hired my first employee and will probably hire my second next week.

There will always be lay-offs, even in the best economies, but we are nowhere near where we were in '08.

What you are witnessing is called the 'new norm'

What you are witnessing is the same old thing.  Hire/Fire has always been the way of the building industry.

  Whats really scary is that firms well known for hiring and then massively firing are really aggressively trying to hire people.  I personally think that is a bad sign because those firms hire up when there's is an artificial spike in our economy, then usually followed by massive layoffs.  So by that indicator things are not looking too good right now.

This is what is going on here in the bay area as they build condos like crazy - I work on a design team that does only condo design - I want to get into another type before the bubble bursts - these units are just too expensive. right now, Zynga(video games) in SF had a big lay off and if tese high paid programmers and artists can't get thier 80k+/yr jobs and can't make these 3k/month mortgage payments then what?

how quick we have forgot what happened in 2008 and Jamie (Wolf of Wall Street)Damon

gets a 74% increase in pay

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-dimon-pay-raise-20140124,0,6830679.story

My over the horizon radar is picking up incoming

Agreed about sf bay area. My first job out of college in 2011 had been a large firm that hired about 50 people at once and began to fire most of them after few months. It was mostly tenant improvement/retail work and felt unstable. Now working at a healthcare/education firm...