nedostizni wrote:
Some say the worst has already passed, some do not. Anyhow, this recession made hundreds and thousands of architects get fired, and at least in my country situation, is very, very bad. They say this year is going to be even tougher.
Can we see some stories and impressions about the current recession at its results and consequences.
Thank you.
It's hard to say whether the worst has really passed. Particularly for Architecture.
They usually say that Architecture is the first to suffer and the last to recover in any recession. Or in other words, architects are the first to be laid off (even before the actual recession begins) and the last to start getting hired again.
This is due to the unique nature of how architecture is related to the Construction Industry which is intimately dependent on credit markets that usually cause recessions. Nobody ever builds buildings with their own money; they typically rely on loans or credit from banks or other organizations. And banks don't usually start lending at a robust level for Construction until long after an economy recovers. So it's not until the economy fully recovers that we can start thinking about the field of architecture for example resuming or recovering "normal" hiring levels.
And sometimes not even.
A lot of people have speculated that it's not likely that the state of hiring and employment in Architecture will resume to the mid-2000 construction boom levels, possibly ever again, or in the near future even if the economy recovers fully.
You see, recessions usually occur about every 10 to 15 years - or at least have occurred that way since the '60s and '70s. The last one was in 2001-2003ish, and although it wasn't as bad as this current one, it had repercussions on the construction industry particularly.
Before that there was one in the early '90's which followed the Black Friday stock market crash of the late '80's (although not exclusively directly related to that crash) and was particularly bad. Before that there was one in the early 80's when there was also a lot of unemployment and it came after the energy crisis of the late '70s.
The one in the '90s was quite bad and led to what was known as the 'lost generation' in architecture where a lot of people who had just graduated or had only just began working in the field in the mid-late 80's, got laid off, and were simply unable to get back into the profession even after the economy recovered to booming levels. That led to a rather odd occurrence in some offices in the late 90's and early 2000's where you would find a lot of 20 year olds and early thirty year old interns and project managers and then 50, 60 year old principals and associates and almost nobody in between in age in their mid-late 30's to people in their 40's. All those were the ones that were wiped out of the profession in the early 90's and were unable to get back in.
The big fear now, is the this recession - which is much worse than any of the ones I listed before, and is in fact the worst on record since the great depression - is inevitably going to lead to the a similar situation where people who recently graduated within the last 3-4 years and were unable to get a job or into the profession, or people who were laid off in that time-frame and have so far been unable to get back in, will all never be able to get into or back into the profession. The reason being that when the economy does indeed recover and firms begin to hire again, they will likely be looking to hire fresh graduates just out of school - 1. because they are cheap labor (sad but true) and most importantly 2. because they are more technology savvy and proficient in the latest software and certainly more so than someone who was in the profession but was laid off and forced to work in an alternate field where he or she couldn't keep up with the current trends in software, construction technology and methodology etc.
They might also be looking to hire more experience staff who are able to run projects and supervise the teams of inexperienced staff, but will only look in th pool of people who are already working with other firms and are really just looking to jump ship. The same thing is already happening today, where if you are not currently working or working in architecture, some firms will simply not consider you for an open position they may be advertising.
So if you're a recent graduate or recently laid-off and haven't had any success getting back in, then chances are that the longer this recession lasts, the harder it will be for you to get back in once everything recovers.
And when you consider the fact that the actual unemployment/under-employment rate for Architects and architectural designers/interns in the profession during this recession is as high as 40-45% (at least here in North America) it pulls it all into a depressingly stark focus.
Of course, the really annoying thing is that we are likely to see this all happening all over again in another 10 or so years when another recession hits - even though it doesn't have to be that way, but because of the fundamental "structural" problems that are inherent in the profession of architecture (particularly as a Practice), these issues will simply never be resolved and we will always keep repeating themselves every single time .
