Heard over breakfast that a friend’s husband was retrenched last month along with 60 other workers in a Sydney finance company. Seems on his daytime walks along Bondi Beach he sees quite a few people he knows - most fellow finance professionals, now out of work.

The global economic crisis is biting hard.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald the finance sector has been hit hardest:

All up, the FSU [Finance Sector Union] estimates there have been almost 5000 jobs lost in the finance industry since the start of the year, most of them in Sydney. Surprisingly, it appears even this may be an understatement. The chief economist at JPMorgan, Stephen Walters, puts the losses at closer to 19,000, based on company briefings to analysts and media reports.

Unemployment hits hard especially when you’re the primary breadwinner. There’s a shame that comes from losing an important element of your identity. I remember the first time someone asked me what I did after being retrenched a few years ago. I replied, “Nothing.” It was more of a surprise to actually say that!

So the advice? Seek out others and talk. Raise your fears, concerns, anger - and strategies for re-employment. Bottling up rage and shame is a mistake. If you don’t become a miserable SOB immediately within months you’ll be clinically depressed.

And enjoy yourself when you walk the beach. Because you will be employed again and you’ll not have the daytime to enjoy the sand between your toes.