Ask A Surveyor
If you are a landowner seeking advice from surveyors, please post your questions and issues here.... View more
Organizer:
- Organized by
-
How much has a recession effect survey demand?
How much has a recession effect survey demand?
Have past bear markets and recessions lowered survey demand? My concern is that over qualified people were competing for jobs in 2008. PA requires a lengthy internship. I wouldn’t want to be halfway through an internship and be unable to complete it because of a layoff for lack of work or having an engineer or more experienced candidate take my position. Are surveys a fairly steady flow of available work?
- 12 Replies
That depends tremendously on the area and the location in which you focus your work. New housing construction, for example, is susceptible to political BS. Fighting with neighbors and code enforcement never go away. Splitting properties for planned transfer to heirs went up following the COVID pandemic. Who would have thought of that? Out in the boondocks there tends to be a more steady flow of work.
In the 26 years I have been in this industry, I have only seen those that rely on the housing market affected by the recession. When the housing market stagnated, subdivision weren’t being developed and those in that niche felt the squeeze harder than those of us outside of that market. From 2006 to 2014, the company I was with had a steady flow of work, including the winter months. We even had problems finding good help from time to time. That said, there is always the possibility that a national economic downfall will devastate the local economy, eliminating jobs from every industry, regardless of your niche of expertise.
It has a major effect on surveying. 2007-2011 or so, no one in the northeast was hiring. I think a lot of people left the profession and never came back.
In 2006 there were managers pulling over on the side of the road to offer me jobs, in 2009 many of those same dudes were out of work.
It has a significant effect but not a universal effect. Some companies will feel the pain, others will continue on as usual. If this is going to affect your career choice, you might want to limit yourself to recession proof work. Otherwise no matter where you are you will be subject to recession. Government work is pretty stable once you get hired, the private sector is less secure. If you want to be a surveyor do the internship. You very well could bypass this opportunity and still be subject to the recession.
Recessions come in different flavors. Some change the course of history. Some are just an opportunity to get in some vacation time. The 2008-2009 one was the worst since the 1930’s. That’s not likely to be repeated for awhile. 2001 was pretty brief and just amounted to less overtime.
The un-employment caused by recessions usually lingers long after the recession is officially over. For instance, employment didn’t rebound around here after the 2008-09 deal until 2015-16. There was a recession in ’73-’75 but there wasn’t a lot of growth between that recession and the next one in ’80-82′, so jobs were hard to come by from the early ’70’s into the mid ’80’s.
If you are perceived to be on a career track, and bring a variety of skills to the table, you will be better able to retain your job through the next recession and its aftermath.
Check out David Wooley’s take.
If you are perceived to be on a career track, and bring a variety of skills to the table, you will be better able to retain your job through the next recession (which I expect to be mild).
That’s essentially how I weathered the 2008 recession. Was happy to do either office or fieldwork, I had a decent cross section of residential and commercial work, and could pick up new and different projects without too much hassle. Didn’t hurt that I could work with pretty much anyone, which could not be said for a good chunk of the field staff.
It was still tough – I think we got a 10-20% pay cut which was then frozen for a couple of years – but hell, our entire residential survey group (field and office) just sort of went away.
“…people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” -Neil Postman
How and where one finds work doesn’t depend on the economy such as the person
R. G. LeTourneau made his first million dollars in 1933 I think it was amazing story of work and willingness to try
Prior to the 2008 bubble, many Surveying Firms had a branch office in the area. Once burst, they quickly pulled out. Although the amount of work changed drastically, the workload only eased up a little. THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL COMMENT. The workload slowdown during this current reccesion does not appear to be as abrupt. But, my backlog is around 60 days for the first time in over 2 years, there are many signs of continuing project starts, land sales and building planning.
@norman-oklahoma That David Wooley??s take was spot on. Should be required viewing for up and comers. It??s really survival of the fittest and most adaptable.
Willy
Fighting with neighbors and code enforcement never go away.
That just gets worse in a recession – the neighbours have now’t else to do!
The un-employment caused by recessions usually lingers long after the recession is officially over. For instance, employment didn’t rebound around here after the 2008-09 deal until 2015-16.
Very true. I finally took a job driving commercially in 2013 and that took me until 2015 when surveying here in Oregon got busy enough to support me full time. For surveyors the slowdown lasted roughly from sometime in 2007-2015 so more like 8 years in the PNW. Sure there was some work, but it was a deep hole with a long road to recovery.
Since I started surveying in 1979 we have gone though the following official recession periods (history, not opinion):
January 1980 ?? July 1980 (six months)
July 1981 ?? November 1982 (16 months)
July 1990 ?? March 1991 (8 months)
March 2001 ?? November 2001 (8 months)
December 2007 ?? June 2009 (18 months)
February 2020 ?? April 2020 (2 months)
2022? History will provide the dates in the future
For me some of these were huge (early 80’s, mid 90’s and mid-late 2000’s, others not so much. I spent a lot of 1980-83 or so on unemployment winters. Tons of surveyors from the PNW relocated to primarily Texas during this time (after sacrificing body parts here, it was brutal, people doing work just for beer money rates), many returned, but not all. I went to Wyoming in 82-83 until the bottom fell out there too.
I took a new job in 1990, seemed to be OK, BUT lingering effects resulted in a layoff in 1995, and I started my own business, tough sledding for a few years, really until the boom for a few years from 2003-2007 for me. As mentioned above, the worst in the PNW for me was 2007-2015 or so and I assume lots of other places, you could buy builders tools for pennies on the dollar at 2nd hand stores for a number of years. Survey tools not so much, I think most downsized and limped along solo.
Often surveying is first felt and last to recover AND almost always results in a much longer time than official recession periods. One thing is certain, surveying will be affected, the question is more about how much and which segment and which region, all those play into it, but having been in this business about four decades teaches you history repeats itself.
Even working mostly public sector projects isn’t immune long term, tax revenues go down, infrastructure gets put on back burner. Usually that “recession” lags the official recession by a few years as there is a long lead time to budgets and a long time before the faucet shutting off after the demand stops.
Make smart choices, tighten the spending, retain clients as best you can and ride it out.
SHG
Log in to reply.