More notes from outside of the US on the economic crisis.
ITALY (Milan): “My sister’s boyfriend, who graduated in IT last year, finally found a job 4 months ago. Unfortunately, despite what they initially promised him, they’ve already reduced his contract from one year to 6 months. Also, the Northern part of Italy has been always the more active one, always plenty of jobs and opportunities but within the last several months, 3 major companies closed! One friend of mine used to work with one of them. He was fired after 6 six years and he is now a single father with two adorable daughters… That’s quite sad…”
ITALY (Bologna): “Well, I’m not feeling any crisis at all at the moment. Nobody I know are losing their jobs (though a friend of mine knows someone who did, he sees things differently. He said “The world is like it’s all over and the bad guys have won”), nor are they changing their lifestyles. All I can see is shopkeepers raising their prices “because of the crisis”. I am not denying there is a crisis, but I’m just not feeling it.”
RUSSIA (Saratov): “First of all I can say that the crisis has not affected my life significantly. Some of my friends are experiencing problems with work but those problems are not critical. Overall the mood of the people around me (regarding the economic problems) is negatively affected by the propaganda on TV.”
ROMANIA: “I’ll start by saying that a word of wisdom in Romania’s slang: “What does a romanian do when he’s out of money? He exchanges 100 Euros!” and by this I really mean that even after so many years of “democracy” people are still keeping some of their money under mattresses. So the real crisis is actually going on on TV and media. There is a global crisis but I believe ours is 50% fabricated. House and cars loans could have been managed to drop slowly and without that big fuss.”
BRAZIL: “My country went through a terrible economic crisis in the early 1990´s and in recent years has seen very positive economic growth. So people are used to hearing the word ‘crisis’, but the real situation can be sensed not in the TV news, but in the T-shirt of a presenter of a very popular Sunday night entertainment TV show: ‘Crisis? What Crisis?’ – in the colors of the American flag. Of course people who work in the multinational industry sectors are at risk of losing their jobs, but then again job safety was never a reality here. The services sector is thriving, the summer sales are on, car sales are increasing because of more credit facilities. I think people in a way ‘want’ to be intimidated by the word ‘crisis’ because it is a fact in the USA and Europe, but at present Brazil is holding a positive and laidback attitude to this, as if watching from a distance a movie that we have watched many, many times!”
Yilan County, Taiwan: I live in the countryside, so I don’t really know what happened in Taipei. However, this economic downturn seems to gradually sink its teeth in some areas of my life. First, just last month (February) or so, one of my clients, a major “entertainment by-product” company, sent a message to their translators, including me, saying the rate will be slashed about 30% of the original number. I don’t really work for them very often, but it came as a minor shock to me. Their manager also told me that some very experienced translators are finally willing to learn a subtitling system. This indicates these freelancers feel the heat now.
One of my cyber pals already told me last October that her employer only had 30% of their usual orders. And recently the numbers aren’t getting better. The chairwoman told them honestly that if the economy stays on this track for 3 more months, all managers will have a pay cut. And if the situation ain’t improving for another 3 months, some of them will be fired.
I went to Malang, Indonesia, to spend 2 weeks with my parents-in-law. Malang is a major city in Java. I forgot who said that, but I think my mother-in-law, or father-in-law, said the unemployment rate is kicking up. The crime rate in some areas are increasing because workers who don’t have jobs are now wandering on the streets. People don’t go out after 5 p.m. in that neighborhood, and there was a rape on the street. My father-in-law drove us around in the city center one night, and I saw some homeless people sleep along a street. It’s quite a weird sight.
As to myself, strangely, the jobs are pouring in like crazy. The size of jobs are getting bigger, and more potential clients are knocking on my mailbox door. Maybe freelancers are one of the few people who can benefit from this gloom.