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We send our reporters around the UK to see what happens in a downturn
1. We innovate more
Kate Burt meets the start-ups who won't be put off by a credit crunch.
However gloomy the economic outlook, Eric Partaker is banking that Londoners will always find a little money for a fajita. He launched "fresh Mexican kitchen" Chilango in Fleet Street last October - despite being flanked by the likes of Pret A Manger, Starbucks, Wagamama and McDonald's. And as the recession has deepened, instead of cutting back Partaker has just opened his second branch, with three more planned this year.
"There's a temptation, when times get tight," he says, "to just maintain your margins and charge more - but we've learnt that customers right now are a lot more picky and, now more than ever, they rule." So all profits have been reinvested into everything from the quality of the produce used to innovative new pricing structures and the decor. Partaker and his partner even paid a creative agency to strengthen their brand to better compete with the major players.
Has it paid off? "At lunchtime in Fleet Street," he says proudly, "Chilango is full. And our profits have gone up 400% a week since launch."
It might seem foolhardy to begin an entrepreneurial venture in a period when even well-established companies are folding, but for many people - downsized, laid-off or otherwise - a slumping economy is an opportunity to get to work on the business ideas they've been wistfully mulling over for years. From the guy who lost his banking job and moved to the country to write a book about becoming a househusband, to the stay-at-home wife of an office furniture salesman - now there's a job on shaky ground - who brainstormed money-making schemes with other local mothers and who now collectively plan to open a market in the local church hall.
Kevin Braddock admits he hasn't yet worked out how to make money from his start-up, which aims to capitalise on people's collective falling out of love with consumerism during the recession. He's just launched Manzine - a magazine aiming to offer an alternative to the "aspirational" men's market. With print journalism hardly thriving, isn't this a disastrous idea?
"Actually the recession was the catalyst," he explains. "It's hard getting pieces commissioned that aren't about selling a product - but I'm not interested in that." Manzine's first issue includes one piece on a father's obsession with high-visibility clothes, another on Brian Eno's indoor shed - and some poetry. There's no advertising, and the magazine is free: "I'd like to turn it into a business: so far, though, I can't see how," he says. "But I thought - right now, what have we got to lose?"
Let's not waste a good crisis - that's what Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's chief of staff, said a couple of months ago. Within days, Matt Kingdon had it emblazoned across his office building. As the chairman of ?WhatIf!, a consultancy for businesses that launched during the 1990s recession and now spans 40 countries with clients including AOL, PepsiCo and Nokia, Kingdon knows a financial downturn creates opportunity. "People's needs in a recession change incredibly fast and we launched because we spotted an opportunity to help big companies keep up and get back in touch with their customers, by adopting a flexible, fast-moving, small-business attitude - and innovating."
Kingdon believes one only has to look at some of the things previous recessions have produced for proof that recession doesn't have to equal stagnation: "Things that have been thrown up include the radar and the jet engine - both wartime innovations - the iPod, MTV, Sellotape, Monopoly, nylon, freeze-dried coffee, photocopying technology, the Polaroid camera and the parking meter.
"Those who win in recession look for the silver lining and the opportunities, rather than getting depressed."
2. We're willing to lower our sights
Lydia Stockdale and Huma Quereshi interview workers who swallowed their pride to do a job they previously thought beneath them.
One day you're safely behind your desk, venturing out occasionally to make a round of tea - the next, you're redundant. What do you do next? Some laid off-workers have refused to become "victims" of this recession, but have picked themselves up and got down to some hands-on work. And to their surprise - they've liked it.
Julie Howes had worked in office-based customer services roles for nearly 20 years before being made redundant in December by Faber Blinds in Northampton. When she was offered temporary work in a warehouse, she decided to give it a go. Now she wonders how she ever worked nine to five, week in, week out.
"Yes it is quite basic - today I have been putting posters and leaflets into packets - but flexibility is the thing," she says. "If I don't want to do the work, then I don't have to.
"I was devastated when I was made redundant. It was the first time I had been out of work and I was embarrassed about it."
But as soon as Christmas was over, Howes donned her suit and hit the recruitment agencies of Northampton. That same afternoon, one called her to say that some warehouse work had become available. Howes went straight out to buy some safety boots in preparation.
"Customer services roles generally require you to work weekends. But I don't want to work weekends now. Weekends are for playing golf."
Fergus Wilders, 47, used to be a broker. Today he is an electrician. After 17 fast-paced years dealing Japanese government bonds, Wilders was made redundant. But instead of waiting at home for the phone to ring he began training last April to be an electrician. He hasn't looked back - having qualified in December, he is now self-employed in Bromley and Croydon.
"Whatever the economic situation, we all use electricity," he says. "Working in the financial markets had its attractions, but getting into the office at 7am every morning takes its toll. And I don't miss entertaining clients and coming home at 5am in the morning."
And Wilders finds his new work a challenge. "When going to a house for a rewire, you have to use your brain. You need to design what you are going to do. You have to be creative."
The Avon lady and Kleeneze man are back: from kitchenware to beauty products, direct selling is enjoying an unprecedented surge in popularity as redundant jobseekers and cash-strapped workers turn to doorstep selling to earn extra cash.
Kleeneze, which sells home, garden and beauty products, says it has seen a 20% year-on-year increase in the number of catalogue distributors.
Cosmetic company Avon says it has also seen a steep rise in the number of people signing up.
Last year Debbie Davis, a senior executive sales leader at Avon, had 1,900 members in her sales team; this year, her network has grown by a further 800 members. She says: "There has been a notable increase in people of all professional backgrounds joining as sales reps - predominantly those hit hard by the credit crunch, such as people who were working in the property sector. It's a way to help pay the bills and maintain household incomes and it's not hard to do - you're just showing brochures around."
Before joining Avon, Davis was making £200 a week working as an administrator in a print factory and part-time as a barmaid in Sunderland. Last year, she made £130,000 through Avon. Davis says: "Being an Avon rep has changed my life - I took four holidays last year whereas I couldn't afford even one when I was in the factory, and I have my own home. I don't feel threatened by the credit crunch at all, because at times like this, Avon will keep growing as people join us looking for an extra source of income."
Jamie Stewart, managing director of Kleeneze, says the number of people enquiring about jobs as distributors has tripled since last year. James Lewis lost his job as a shift manager with an engineering company in Crewe just before Christmas. He found out about Kleeneze through word of mouth, and has been working as a distributor for three weeks.
"It's an interim income - something to keep us going until I find another permanent engineering job," says Lewis. "But even if I got another job, I think I'd keep this up, as it's something I can do in my own time, when I want to. At the end of the day, it's an extra few hundred pounds a month to help towards the mortgage and maintaining the lifestyle that my family is used to."
Lewis has set himself a monthly sales target of £1,000 and expects to earn at least £210 a month in commission to start with. "It's a basic amount, but that's just the minimum - if I keep on having good weeks, I could be on £800 at the end of the month, and the start-up cost will have paid for itself."
3. We don't like 'foreigners' taking 'our' jobs
Hsiao-Hung Pai visits migrant Italian workers living on a barge in Grimsby.
It's snowing heavily outside as I wait in a Grimsby pub for Francesco and Gianluca. Will they bother to come out in this weather?
"Hey, Chinese, is everything alright?" a local woman asks me, loudly, from across the bar. Everyone else laughs.
When they arrive, Francesco and Gianluca greet me with a "Buona sera!" We sit down to a few beers and my Italian-speaking Bulgarian friend - he worked as a builder in Italy - acts as interpreter.
Francesco and Gianluca are two of the 100 Italians who arrived in late January on a four-month contract to work at the French oil giant, Total, at Lindsey oil refinery in Immingham. Francesco, in his late forties, has worked as a welder in Tunisia and Libya. Gianluca, in his thirties, has worked in Croatia and Germany. "This is my first time in the UK," Francesco says, "and it is the first time in my 20 years of working abroad that I've experienced anti-foreign feelings."
Their employment by Italian company Irem, for the building of a sulphurisation facility at Total, prompted a wave of nationwide wildcat strikes involving more than 6,000 workers on 20 construction sites - all angry that "foreign workers" are taking "British jobs".
The Unite union says the strikes are about challenging the Posted Workers Directive and ensuring service providers follow national agreements across the EU. And yet the unions have rallied behind the divisive slogan of "British jobs for British workers", and alienated migrant workers in the process.
Francesco says the real issue is about the system of subcontracting which isn't specific to overseas firms and affects workers of all nationalities.
"Irem pays differentiated wages to its workers," he explains. "The hourly rate ranges from €14 [£12.50] in Bologna to €12 in the UK. Ten of us welders are on €12-per-hour but the 80 labourers are on €7-per-hour. And the new 100 British workers [starting work following an agreement with the unions] will be on the same rate."
Gianluca looks at my interpreter friend. "I remember migrants in Italy, like Bulgarian workers ... They earn less than half our rate, for doing the same skilled jobs. I asked myself, the Bulgarians are also specialists like us, why are they only earning €5? All [posted] workers should be paid equally and have the same rights."
"The problem is we have weak and useless sindicatos [trade unions] in Italy," says Francesco.
A study published last week by the Institute for Public Policy Research found there is no evidence to suggest the impact of migrants on UK jobs and wages has been harmful.
But instead of advocating equal conditions for all workers, British trade unions have bowed to nationalist pressure and fought for quotas for British workers. Picket line racist abuse was treated as acceptable. "I saw a Lindsey steward give out union jack flags to strikers here," said local activist John Shemeld of the Staythorp power plant strike. "The leadership [of the strikes] is not racist, but they don't challenge racism."
Living on a barge at Grimsby docks, the Italian workers have become ever more isolated from the local community since the racially-charged strikes - prevented by security guards from talking to anyone from outside the barge, workers tell me when I visit. I am only able to talk to them through the metal gate - worse than a prison visit. "I'm unhappy with my life here," one welder tells me. "It's a difficult and aggressive environment."
Their life in Grimsby is confined to the barge. "Two people sharing a large cabin isn't bad," says Gianluca. "Accommodation and meals are provided free. But 100 of us are stuck in a common hall with just two TVs, and no alcohol is allowed."
Francesco said he's living in two time zones, only one hour different but a world away. "I have two mobile phones, one set with British time, used only for work, the other with Italian time used only after work and when I can think about home."
How does he cope? "Because I know we're leaving soon enough, and I know I'm not coming back."
4. Our selfish genes get to work
One in five people is willing to be more ruthless to protect their jobs.
One in 10 is prepared to stab colleagues in the back to prove their value, claims a survey of 1,000 employees by HR consultancy Ceridian. The same proportion would turn a blind eye to unacceptable behaviour from their managers while one in three would voluntarily put in extra hours.
5. There is another way
Lightbulb moment for employers who discover laying off full-time workers is not the only way to save money.
Half of employers say they have introduced recruitment freezes, 44% are terminating temporary contracts and one in seven (15%) have introduced short-term working.
The research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and consultant KPMG shows other measures include flexible working (19%), cutting bonuses (17%) and wage cuts (7%). (Watch our video on four-day working at guardian.co.uk/careerstalk)
6. Some jobs are recession proof
If only I worked in ...
Prospects are still bright if your line of work is making energy saving lightbulbs, flatscreen TVs, pizzas or foot-long sandwiches. B&B owners expect to benefit from more holidaymakers staying in the UK this year. And business is brisk for pawnshops, bailiffs, doorstep lenders and forensic accountants.
7. We dress smarter
Workers are smartening up to escape the axe.
Ditch the unstructured "business casual" look for some gravitas and treat each day in the office like a job interview by wearing a suit to work. That's the advice from consultant Aziz which found that almost half of employees would dress more smartly if their job was at risk.
The company's image consultant says wearing a suit makes you appear more responsible, in control and able to ride out the economic storm.
8. Our vocabulary has been expanded
Are you recession roadkill, derolexed in the babyboombust?
Of course they wanted to keep you - it was just UMC (unforeseeable market conditions). Any plans to celebrate your canniversary (a year from the date on which you were fired from a job)?
9. We're all victims ...
There's been a sharper decline in the number of women at work, but job insecurity causes more anxiety in men.
We've been told that women, older workers and ethnic minorities have been hardest hit by the downturn. Well, now it seems men are at risk too - likely to become more depressed and anxious than women. Findings presented at a University of Cambridge conference yesterday suggest the effects of job insecurity will take a greater toll on men's health. The research also shows the long-term decline in mental wellbeing can be worse for people who are under threat of losing their jobs than for those who are actually made redundant.
10. ... but we can still have a laugh
So long as it's at bankers' expense.
Definition of optimism? Banker ironing five shirts on a Sunday. Difference between a banker and a pigeon? A pigeon can still put a deposit on a Maserati.
Ian Wylie
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