Involuntarily Lost a Job (in IT) since 2008? How long did it take to replace?

[frugaliknowit]

For purposes of determining an appropriate Emergency Fund size, can you share with me how long it took you to replace your job if you have been laid off/fired since 2008?  If you could share your job function/title, that would be great.  Thanks for your help!

[Uturn]

I got fired in Feb 2010.  Jumped on the motorcycle and rode around TX for a week to clear my head, then landed a contract gig about 3 weeks later.  Found a full time gig in May.

I'm a 20 year's experienced network engineer in DFW.  Switched from network to security in 2013.  I changed companies last fall after a 3 month search.   

[Spork]

It REALLY depends on location (and if you're willing to change it).

Much like Uturn, I was IT/Net security in Dallas for 20+ years.  Finding another gig there ... I haven't tried, but there are tons of openings (and I actually have some amount of people networking there.)

I moved to a smallish town in 2006 with no prospects.  It took me 3 years to find a similar gig there.  The pay was a little more than 1/2 of the bigger city with less benefits (and the cost of living was about 5-10% higher than the big city).  There just were not jobs in that field.  I saw about one opening every 6 months... applied for most of them... got offers on a few that I turned down due to long commute/low salary.

[MayDay]

H and I suffered a series of horrible layoffs during the recession.  We were engineers, so analogous to IT but not exactly. 

The longest one lasted a year.

But the repetitive nature of them (I think there were maybe 5 total in 5 years?) was horrible in two ways.  1.  We never felt safe and secure.  The next one was always looming.  2.  Every layoff, the emergency fund would drop as we had to spend some of it, and then when a new job started we would save it up again, just to turn around and empty it again.  We never ran the emergency fund out totally, but we never got ahead.

Now H has been in the same job for over 4 years with no layoffs, but it still affects him mentally.  I was less affected as my layoff resulted in another job within the same company with no break in pay. 

[Uturn]

No job is ever save and secure.  My mental well-being increased dramatically once I realized this.  Your job security comes from your ability to go find a way for you to be valuable to a company, not the company's ability to give you a paycheck. 

Having to dip into or ever use up your emergency fund during a crisis is not a sign of failure, it's a sign of doing things right.  Crisis and life setbacks happen to everyone, it's only foolish to not plan for them.   

[RyanAtTanagra]

I got laid off in 2009 in Ohio.  Took 5 months to find the next job, but I was being a little picky.  Unemployment was covering my expenses nicely so I wasn't in a hurry.

[bacchi]

Two startups have failed on me since 2008.; one in 2012 and one in 2014. Each time, it took about a month to pick up a contract gig.

For reference, in 2003, during the after-effects of the dotcom crash, I was unemployed for a year.

[Helvegen]

My husband got laid off early 2011. We took our meager savings and UI, packed the car, and moved to the Puget Sound. We only had to use one week of UI because basically we both were offered temp work immediately. Within 3-4 weeks, my husband had several FT perm job offers. He took one and life was fine for about 15-16 months, when he was laid off again. He was out of work for 3 months, then was hired temp and offered a FT perm position the following month. He worked that job until two months ago when he was unexpectedly headhunted for another position making significantly more money.

[forestj]

I was fired 4 months ago since the company  I was working for was going through a dry spell at the same time as I was for fighting to get a better salary.

I applied at a lot of places in the area (minneapolis metro). I was picky about who I wanted to work for (ethics, nature of business, and quality of work environment) and eventually found a nice job with slightly better salary than the one I was fired from.  It took me about a month of searching about 20 hours a week for the right fit.  I transitioned from a mid-level software developer role to a mid-level Dev Ops role.

[Axecleaver]

After the .bomb crash, I was out of work for a year. Supplemented income with occasional consulting work, but made less than 20% of my 2000 salary. Other contract ends, layoffs, etc were three months or less.

[plog]

Fired in 2009 as Data Analyst (building data warehouses, pulling data), hired 2 months later (sooner than I wanted) as Programmer/Data Analyst, 15% more money.

Always have your resume online and at least passively looking for a job.