The Survival Game after Redundancy on a Meagre Income Allowance

How do we cope playing the survival gameafter redundancy and having to live on a meagre income allowance? No matter who you speak to at the moment all too often you hear a tale of woe regarding either a good friend or someone in the family that has been or is being made redundant.

Although during my life the threat of redundancy has never been far away, from the desperate days of the first major recession of my experience as a child during the mid 70’s when my parents suffered the power cuts and three-day-weeks, another in the early 90’s although not as bad, and here we are again with a world wide credit crunch that’s bringing several countries to their knees.

Inevitably you start to feel insecure in your job and start looking over your shoulder, and your thoughts meander over the possibility of having to play the survival gameafter redundancy and having to live on a meagre income allowance. When we have a regular income and are managing to keep the wolves from the door, the bank manager at bay and if we’re clever, putting some money into savings ‘for a rainy day’ although, we’re more likely to be saving for a holiday or a new car, or an extension on the house . . . the list of ways we find to spend our savings is endless!

It is difficult to comprehend exactly what it must be like to have only Job Seekers benefit, a princely sum of £60.50 per week. Some people spend nearly that much on cigarettes! Most of us naively believe that it won’t take long to find another job. ‘With all my years of experience and the skills I have developed I’m bound to be snapped up’. If only it was that simple. According to government figures we’ve only just topped 2 million unemployed and soon could be 3, so the real figure is likely to be significantly higher, but already employment agencies are saying that on average there are 4 suitable job seekers for every vacancy.

Experience suggests that this figure is very optimistic. Talking to agencies specialising in recruiting for manufacturing management and quality assurance management positions, feedback suggests that they are being overwhelmed with applications for each vacancy, in some cases in the hundreds. For lower skilled jobs the outlook is even more depressing.

A local garage recently advertised in their local paper for a ‘Driver’. The only requirement was a clean driving licence and good knowledge of the local area. Two days after the paper had been published they had received over 50 applications and they phoned the paper to close the advert. The truth is that if you are unfortunate enough to be job seeking after redundancy right now your chances of finding employment in the short term are negligible. In this instance you really don’t have much choice about playing the survival game by restricting your spend and stretching your income allowance.

Cutting out luxuries and cutting down on some of the essentials is the easy bit. The more difficult tasks will be the likes of negotiating with your mortgage lender to either take payment holidays or re-negotiate monthly payments based on your benefits. Likewise bank overdrafts and loans. The banks tend to be very friendly all the time your account is running smoothly but the moment you are in difficulty they tend to close ranks.

At a time when you need for them to be understanding and helpful their demeanour changes to one of strict formality. I suppose that given their particular predicament in this time of credit crunch, they have all been hurt quite badly and are struggling to survive so the last thing they want to hear about is all your personal problems. What they fail to understand, (or perhaps choose not to) is that your situation is all you care about, and for your peace of mind and sanity you require a speedy resolution. What we need is an opportunity to exercise our entrepreneurial skills. Just that simple idea that will make us lots of money. You know the type . . Cats Eyes, . . . Traffic Cones. Ah well, back to checking the lottery results!!

Paul Palmer