Gloomy Start to 2009

Needless to say the economic crisis is hitting hard worldwide. You can't help but read of employees being retrenched each week. Qimonda has filed for insolvency. Intel is closing a few plants. Even Google (or was it Microsoft?) had let go some of its staffs. 20 million workers retrenched in China. The paper truly knows how to sensationalize the issues. I mean 20 million must be affected through a certain period of time but the way the paper wrote it is like it was an overnight thingy.

Here, we've gone through one stage of retrenchment and VSS each. Company announced paycut early in January. Ouch! Now that we're into February, company is looking at less work days in a week. Double ouch. Already plan to reduce expenditures. Less dining out. Less shopping. I purposely did not go to shopping malls during the recent long holiday. Prevention better than regrets!