sat the last 2 days watching people get retrenched

There is a picture of Mazerin in the Boardroom.

I was asked to consult on the systems and ensure process ran smoothly.

Major JSE company retrenched admin staff. some with long service.

Reasons are Extra cost burdens on employer, Union stubbornness, Escom problems and increases and finally remaining profitable in what is very hard trading conditions.

So why worry? This is not the 1st this year that i am aware of and wont be the last. An instead of talking up business our Government makes crazy statements and takes even crazier actions to ensure that business and investor confidence remains in the toilet.

i felt so sorry watching the people getting retrenched. An no they were not white. the bulk were other colors.

the unfortunate thing about retrenchments are that the ones who get the boot and the ones that are not to blame for the decline in the business. The ones that are at fault all get to keep their jobs as the pay off will be far to much to carry. Look at Governments. They fire the nurses. doctors, fireman, police yet they all keep their cosey paid for by the tax payer jobs. Life can be cruel to a whole lot of people.

I have never been a person that rushes to the pumps when the price of petrol goes up but yesterday I was going on a long trip so i needed to fill up - I was amazed at the amount of high end cars filling up to save a few rands (5 pm so you'd expect they would be on their way home not stuck in a fuel line)- people that you would never think would bother to queue were indeed doing so - rough waters ahead Captain!

mr hawaii wrote: I have never been a person that rushes to the pumps when the price of petrol goes up but yesterday I was going on a long trip so i needed to fill up - I was amazed at the amount of high end cars filling up to save a few rands (5 pm so you'd expect they would be on their way home not stuck in a fuel line)- people that you would never think would bother to queue were indeed doing so - rough waters ahead Captain!

fuel going up again. When it was £1.34 a litre at the super markets then price on the motorways was pushing £1.60 a litre. There is a petrol station in Kensington in London where the price is close to £2.00 a litre. All the rich that live in the area and drive £150k cars fill up there.

Never nice when people lose their jobs through no fault of their own. It not only hurts the person but the family in a terrible way and as said by CNC is often because of bad management decisions at an earlier point in the economic cycle.

I worked at Saambou Bank and it wasn't pleasant when the company left us, saw a lot of fine people get hurt badly.

There is an upside in some instances where people had great ideas but lacked the courage to get stuck in, but when forced to came through very strong and achieved fantastic results.

Hope that some of the mentioned people will find similar outcomes.

I will never understand big business, some of these companies like shell that have made billions in profits, paying a few folk off because their is a dip in the oil prices..

Then they release that profits are down, they have only made 800m profit blah blah

The first guy to lose his job invariably is the sweeper and he will be replaced by a sweeper who will also be first to lose his job during the next round of downsizing and he will be replaced by a sweeper ....