Doom and gloom again

Staying positive will at least help us all get through the hard times, writes Sara Yirrell

Despite trying to remain optimistic, it is hard not to get weighed down by the amount of negativity over the economy at the moment, and the doom and gloom that is surrounding our entry into 2009.

We have already seen established retail brands such as Woolworths and MFI go into administration over the past couple of weeks, and 150-year-old institutions such as Lehman Brothers earlier this year.

Talk is rife that more big names will follow. On a personal front, houses are being repossessed, analyst reports are painting gloomy pictures of the IT market and retailers are predicting the worst Christmas for more than a decade.

In the past week, credit insurance giant Euler revised its profit forecast on the back of the Woolworths incident and in response to what it claimed was a higher-than-anticipated level of insurance claims. Also smaller player Amlin pulled out of the credit insurance market altogether.

On top of that, a report based on a survey of more than 1,000 marketing executives revealed that those working in the IT and telecoms industry were most concerned about job security going into 2009.

However, on the flip side, all the people I speak to in our industry are holding their heads up and finding new reserves of determination to beat this crunch and emerge stronger on the other side.

I just hope we can keep up this optimism and help get each other through what is undoubtedly one of the most difficult periods in recent years.