You know the credit crunch is truly biting when a company as big and iconically British as JCB stars to massacre its workforce.
I reckon most casual observers might have thought the 400-odd redundancies announced by the digger manufacturer earlier this week would have been enough.
But it seems the future looks grim for those left behind. According to my local paper, The Sentinel, JCB, based at Rocester, near Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, are now giving their workers an ubearable ultimatum: choose to reduce the number of hours you work (and brass you take home) or risk many more job cuts.
The economic gloom being experienced across the board already feels like it has lasted a lifetime. Soaring shopping bills (bad news when you can eat for Britain like me); a collapsing housing market; rocketing gas and electricity bills; and banking chaos.
You'd like to think that companies with as robust an image as JCB were equipped to weather the storm better than most. After all, the firm has enjoyed such phenomenal success from humble beginnings in a garage in Uttoxeter.
Yet there's no escaping it. The future's looking grim, and if firms like JCB are to slash their workforce, what hope is there for less mighty businesses out there?
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