Ever since I started work in 1999, I have been through so many rounds of so called economic downturn, recession, retrenchment, etc. Situation just would not improve but the cycle between each downturns seems like just getting shorter, from 10 years to 5 years to every 2, 3 years???
Manufacturing folks are the worst affected group of people as compared to other fields. Read in news paper, you can see so many companies are laying off staffs, cutting salary, etc. Anyway, I still can hear people say that they are not affected by the downturn, no impact and still as good as before. Some people even say, this economy crisis which originated by the bankruptcy of American banks, only affects certain countries, their countries are not affected. Is this true? May be for now. I will say that we live in a world of globalization. We rely on trades and import/export among countries of the world. We need to have banks, industries, tourism, etc. If other parts of the world, especially those giant economy body, are not doing fine, how do we carry on our business with them? Can we be left alone not impacted and still enjoy good living? Think about it.
There is always chain impact that is in play for the current economic downturn. The whole world will not suddenly suffer the impact of economic downturn at one time. The banks do not bankrupt in one day. Other industries, including manufacturing, do not encounter sluggish production and customer order if the financial crisis did not happen. The industries may can sustain a little bit longer until the next round of downturn. All these are chain effect. Some countries will be affected immediately and some countries later. This depends on the economic tie, the trade percentage, and your trading countries. If you export your goods to a country that is badly hit by the downturn, you will find that they start to cut their order, by 30 - 50%. Some even completely halt the order. Can you not affected if this happens? Eventually all countries will suffer the impact of this downturn, which what we see now, some countries have their GDP grow in the negative territory. I hope the worst is already bottomed and things will get better soon, not by end of 2010, which everyone reads from news paper and is saying around.
