27 November 2008

Sacked!

No, not me. It would be quite hard to sack myself. But the last 2 weeks have been full of unrelenting gloom about redundancies in the press. You can read some of it here, here, here and here... And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I feel for my staff colleagues who are facing redundancy. I worry for those who are still there but have no idea how long for. I see newly redundant colleagues thrust into freelancing not from choice and having to figure it out on the hoof.

A friend was made redundant today then asked to reapply for her job, which now has a new title and - amazingly - a slight pay increase. So it's not all bad but these are very worrying times.

I've been quiet on here as I've had a massive workload and been keeping my head down getting on with keeping the proverbial from my doorstep. I'm grateful I have a broad spread of clients but I do wonder how long many of us freelances can keep going.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

God it's so depressing. I'm really pushing myself at the moment because I'm terrified to say no to anything in case I have a dry spell next year. My boyfriend is an artist who lives off of commissions. He just had a meeting with a potential sponsor who said 'well, we are laying people off at the moment, so we can't really be seen to be funding the arts'. Depressing, depressing, depressing.

Unknown said...

Likewise. I've taken on a ridiculous amount of work that I'm struggling to handle as I'm too nervous to say no. At the same time, I know I ought to be pitching out there now for new work for early next year but I haven't got the time...

I predict butchery across the media over the next 12 months (redundancies this year are already stacking up at c.4,000 in print press). It won't just be print and online journalism, it'll be in TV, book publishing and so on. Which means those of us with fingers in related pies will still feel the pinch.

I have a back-up plan but I'm still expecting a rough ride ahead.