Lainey

So, do you see any improvement in the economy/job situation/home sales in your area?

Our area is still hurting. State unemployment is down for October to 8.4%, our local area is 11+%.

Our household has dealt with some issues in the last little while, though some things have improved, I'm about to go on reduced hours again, (3 day work week) with a partial unemployment benefit. The hope is that this will only be until March or April. Our area and my place of employment has strong ties to the commercial fishing industry and that industry is also hurting with the cost of operation, as well as the many rules and regulations severely limiting how much fishing a vessel can do.

Home sales still seem to be lagging, and I don't see much new construction.

Hopefully, the worst is behind us, but I agree with those who say it will be a slow crawl out of this recession.

What is happening in your neck of the woods?

Scooterboy

The economy in this area is still pretty bad but on the upside the company I work for is in an up turn. We have hired back a few people and are interviewing a few others. Business is picking up and we are starting to see an order backlog. Exports are helping us quite a bit!

dlq04

I went to our local Meijer's store, a big box dept store, yesterday. The shelves were packed and the store was nearly empty. So, I'd say things haven't improved any here. And robberies are definitely up. All-in-all, a lot of not-good. Heck, even GM fired it's boss. Now they are saying no one with the real talent and background to lead GM would want the job due to the gov't's salary limitations. In short, MI news just goes from bad to worse.

Legal Bill

In my neighborhood I see very few homes for sale. There is one with a sale pending sign, so that is good news.

I have a lot of pine cones in the yard that need to be raked up, but I can't get my son to do it. I guess he doesn't need the money. My neighbor just complained to us because my son's dog barks at their workshop at night when they are in there working on things. They are in there a lot, so they must be busy. They also seem to be tired of hearing our dog bark at them.

The guy across the street put out a ton of Christmas decorations the day after thanksgiving, so they must be doing ok.

The office park I pass on my way to the train station has fewer for rent signs up, so maybe they have leased out some space. But the huge redevelopment project that was going to be built around the train station has been halted for about a year now. I don't know when that will open up again.

That said, the brand new mall in Dedham is booming with business. It is hard to find parking, and people line up at the Whole Foods store to pay twice as much money for food that they could buy at the Shaws down the street.

The Mall at the Prudential seems to be flooded with shoppers every day, but who knows if they are buying anything?

I'm selling lots of used British car parts to people in Europe, so they seem to be doing ok.

The freakin' BMW dealership has them lined up in the morning to get their $128 oil changes, so they seem to be doing well.

Restaurants all seem busy, and the UPS truck makes a bunch of deliveries in my neighborhood every evening.

NNY S2k

Still hurting here too, Pffiser Has just announced it was closing 3 local plants and laying off 600.
Levi

Lainey

My brother in law (59) just lost his job when two pharmaceutical companies merged. He is one of the fortunate ones as he was getting close to retirement. He had about 30 years with the company. He has about 80 weeks of severance pay, then he will get his 401 and pension, along with continued health benefits.

A sweetheart deal to be sure. He says he does not miss working at all. I wouldn't either with that financial security.

Kyras

It's still bad here. California has high unemployment but it's even worse locally. At least the fall in home prices has stopped. Car dealerships have closed up and gone away but a brand new Mercedes dealership just opened up where another make went out.

valentine

I'm not certain how things are going here, but if mall shopping is an indicator it is . Even on black Friday, the mall was not overly crowded. I did notice that before Thanksgiving, the grocery stores were totally packed and I figured ppl were eating at home rather than going out. Jobs are not plenteous unless you're a nuclear engineer. Our city is home to two very large nuke factories who are always hunting for good engineers and support staff. Civil engineers can often find at home at the large civil engineering firm that works worldwide. Bottom line . . . if you are an unskilled or even somewhat skilled laborer, you will not be able to get a job unless you want to work at McDonalds whipping up burgers for engineers. The unemployment rate is at more than 9% but that is an improvement over last month's 10%. Houses are not selling very quickly and prices are staying about level with last year -- no more, no less.

S2KRAY

The outlet stores in my area were nuts. They were turning people away from the parking lot at 2 AM for stores that opened early on Black Friday. Home sales (New and Existing) are up but this is the beach area and we are getting a lot of retirees migrating here from N.J., N.Y., Pa. due to good prices, no sales tax and very low property taxes. Of course we closed the GM and Chrysler Plants and one refinery so overall Delaware's unemployment rate is high. We are trying to give a little more to the community this holiday season as we are fortunate and some are not so fortunate.

fltsfshr

My biz has experienced a little bit of growth the last 3months over last year. I find that encouraging.

We're still seeing a lot of foreclosure inventory rolling over. Our immigrant population , legal and illegal, has dropped substantially with the loss of construction jobs. Our tourist ans snowbird season is just starting so there are some seasonal jobs available. Lots of medical jobs around.

fltsfshr