For many of us, the effect of the credit crunch and this current economical roller coaster is starting to take its toll as more and more people find themselves struggling to find work or facing uncertainty of whether they will be able to even keep their current employment position.

As already mentioned in an earlier post, many builders in our sector are no exception to this. However, it is now not just builders themselves in difficulty but also many smaller builders merchants are starting to make drastic cut backs and laying much of their staff off. It doesn’t stop there though; DIY giants B and Q have even just announced that they are too making job cuts in light of the current turn of events. With many of their prices slashed and a range of incentives to start tempting customers to buy more, the credit crunch has even caused B and Q to bow over.

I like B and Q as a store but mainly because of the convenience of being able to go there from 7 AM in the morning until 8 PM at night, which can’t be done with the majority of smaller privately run builders merchants. However, smaller builders merchants offer a more personal service to builders and stock a wider range of ‘ off the shelf’ building materials that B and Q and other big DIY outlets such as Wickes, Homebase etc, haven’t even heard of.

Builders need smaller builders merchants in the building trade and I only hope that the government will remedy this terrible mess that they or the banks have gotten us into.

It is said that approximately 75 billion pounds has been printed to help get the economy moving again. Let’s hope they distribute it or invest it wisely.

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