Should I accept redundancy offer.

M

mickmac29

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9
Age: 37
Spouse’s/Partner's age: n/a

Annual gross income from employment or profession: 60,000
Annual gross income of spouse:n/a

Monthly take-home pay Around 3,000 per month. Varies with overtime.

Type of employment: PAYE worker in a large multinational company. Working 12 hour day/night shifts. Includes working 2*12 hour shifts every second weekend. 48 hours one week and 36 hours the second week. half of all shifts are night shifts. Some overtime which can be unpredictable. Almost certainly extremely limited overtime from the new year onwards.

In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving?
Saving

Rough estimate of value of home 80,000 (2 bed apartment bought in the boom for 185,000)
Amount outstanding on your mortgage: 129,000
What interest rate are you paying? 1.75% (tracker mortgage from halifax bank). Approx 18 years left. Repayments are 680 per month. Also overpaying by 150 per month.

Other borrowings – none (don't have a car. Never drove)

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes
If not, what is the balance on your credit card? n/a

Savings and investments:
Bank saving account 6,400. Credit union 13,000. Irish life investment 32,000.
Currently saving as follows. 30 per week into bank saving account. 70 per week into credit union. 420 per month into Irish life investment.


Do you have a pension scheme? Yes. Defined contribution. Currently has 68,000 euro invested. Includes contribution from myself, employer and AVC's which altogether totals almost 100 euro per week. Seems to preform quite poorly and I'm reluctant to put any extra money in.

Do you own any investment or other property? none

Ages of children: none

Life insurance: none.


What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
I've been working for this company for 16 years and there is a redundancy coming up in the new year with a good package on offer. After 16 years of shift work I'm getting pretty tired of it and am ready for a change. If I accept the redundancy I will get approx 105,000 lump sum depending on when exactly I'm let go. Along with my savings I would then have around 160,000. I never went to college after school and am giving very serious taught to it now. I'd like to study for a degree in computer science for 4 years in university or one of the institutes of technology.

In the next 12 months I need to spend around 8,000 to 10,000 doing up the apartment. This is pretty much unavoidable. I'm not sure what to do then. The money I'd have left over must see me through 4 years of college. I'd also have gas and electricity bills, food etc. Also travel to college would be around 45 euro a week.

Should I pay off the entire mortgage. If I do I might not have enough left to get me through college. If I keep large amounts of money in savings I would not be eligible for any grants or unemployment assistance during the summer. I may be able to get a summer job but this would not be guaranteed and I'd be competing with students half my age.

How should I save/invest my money if I do take redundancy to ensure I'm not left short. If I do go to college and am successful I'd start any new job on a much lower salary but this wouldn't concern me too much if I was mortgage free. I would need to buy a car then though and would have all the costs associated with it. I have absolutely no need of a car at present as I'm a 2 minute walk from work.

On the other hand my current job is a very very good job for someone with no qualifications. Its in the pharma sector but the future may be bleak, its hard to tell. The money on offer is very attractive but I'm having a hard time deciding what to do. I don't have to make my mind up about the offer until April so I have time to think. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.


Mick.
 
Well let me comment on IT and the future there: IT is an unusual field because a degree does not count for much on it's own! Most people going into the degree will have already done a lot beforehand - wrote code, built machines, took part in open source projects and so on. So when it comes recruitment time the people you are up against are not just graduates, they are graduates with may be 6+ years experience! Most of the people we take on are usually carrying a full work load within a week, as there is very little difference between the code they are writing at home in the bedroom and what we need them to do.

Now this may well be you, but if you have never written a program, built a machine or set up a network up to now, be aware that it will be a very serious challenge to succeed.
 
There are lots of different areas in IT - it's not totally related to building machines, programming etc. One of the most useful uses of IT is how people use it to transform things - this could be to improve processes in a work environment , upgrade inter and external company communications, and lots of other really worthwhile uses of IT. IT is just a 'machine' - and with your experience of a lot of the workflow throughout a manufacturing environment, I've no doubt you'll gain lots of benefit from identifying how the use of IT can improve stuff. My advice, keep your tracker and investigate the possibility of doing an IT degree at night, online etc. Keep that dream - it's a good one.
 
Eithneangela said:
There are lots of different areas in IT - it's not totally related to building machines, programming etc. One of the most useful uses of IT is how people use it to transform things - this could be to improve processes in a work environment , upgrade inter and external company communications, and lots of other really worthwhile uses of IT. IT is just a 'machine' - and with your experience of a lot of the workflow throughout a manufacturing environment, I've no doubt you'll gain lots of benefit from identifying how the use of IT can improve stuff. My advice, keep your tracker and investigate the possibility of doing an IT degree at night, online etc. Keep that dream - it's a good one.
Click to expand...

Over the past two years or so there have been several post on careers forums from people who have done what the OP is considering, only to find they were not landing the jobs that they had expected to be there - they were told wrongly get the degree and you'll have no problem getting a job and that is just not the case!

In over twenty five years I can safely say that I don't know a single IT person from sys admins, networking, telecoms, engineering or consulting who's first encounter with 'the job' was when they started college. IT grads are not only expected to show potential, they are expected to be able to show what they have done!
 
Mickmac;

Your package @ 106,000 . Is that after tax/Deductions.?
A fair amount of it will be taxed.
If you ask Personnel, they will advise. Or the Revenue leaflet on tax and redundancy.
 
Thanks for the replies, they do give food for taught. Just to clarify some of the points raised in no particular order.

The redundancy package is 106,000 after tax. This has been confirmed both by HR and by my own calculations. I didn't bother giving the gross payment before tax in my original post. HR has supplied me with a print out showing all details such as start date, finish date, gross payment and tax paid on the lump sum. My own calculations which were done using the revenue guidelines gave the same figures.

With regards to the posters commenting on a career in IT I am concerned with the very rosy picture painted by the government and industry. I don't want to spend 4 years in college earning a degree only to find a hostile job market when I'm finished. The courses I am considering mostly seem to have a work experience element built into them. Would people consider these an advantage in getting your first job after you graduate. I'm hoping to go into software development after college if possible.

With regards to studying part time I have considered this. The problem I see is that if I stay in my current job and study part time I will not get any redundancy when I eventually leave.When I graduate I will then have to take a very large pay cut in my first professional job. But if I accept redundancy the lump sum could pay off the mortgage and the lower salary wouldn't impact as much.


Mick.
 
mickmac29 said:
I'm hoping to go into software development after college if possible.
Click to expand...
OK, so how many applications have you written up to now, do you have a URL that one can go to to see your work? Can you turn on your laptop and pull up a few apps that you have written?

In many ways recruiting a software developer is like taking on a photographer or an artist, you're expected to have some kind of portfolio of your work. And there is no reason why you should not - there are plenty of development tools a round for free, there are lots of open source projects running and everyone has ideas about what they'd like their computer to do for them.... My 12 year old has been working on and off for about a year on her own YouTube player, so far she can query YouTube, create playlists and a few other things. The point is that that is the competition, the kids with the degree and something to show.

The other thing to keep in mind is that IT changes very quickly and you need to be very active in keeping up to date. Reading, trying things out and so on in your own time. Even most IT manager types who spend their day doing admin work, tend to do a lot of hacking outside the office!

IT is a very interesting area to work in and it can be very rewarding financially, but you've got to be really into IT to make it work.
 
mickmac29 said:
Thanks for the replies, they do give food for taught.

With regards to the posters commenting on a career in IT I am concerned with the very rosy picture painted by the government and industry. I don't want to spend 4 years in college earning a degree only to find a hostile job market when I'm finished. The courses I am considering mostly seem to have a work experience element built into them. Would people consider these an advantage in getting your first job after you graduate. I'm hoping to go into software development after college if possible.

With regards to studying part time I have considered this. The problem I see is that if I stay in my current job and study part time I will not get any redundancy when I eventually leave.When I graduate I will then have to take a very large pay cut in my first professional job. But if I accept redundancy the lump sum could pay off the mortgage and the lower salary wouldn't impact as much.


Mick.
Click to expand...

Mick,

My advise (after 17 years in IT) is that you speak to someone, or several people who work in IT and have a good insight into how the industry works. I have seen it many times where people start college (haven't picked the correct course) and then give up because it's either too business focussed, too much programming, too technical or whatever.

As others have said - try to find out where your interest lies - hardware, software, security,web dev, forensics, networks, management, audit etc..... the list is endless.

Then pick a course that will assist you towards this goal - and it may not necessarily be a degree - there are so many entry points into IT these days.

I also lecture part time in a MSc course for conversion students joining IT from a different discipline so I have seen these students struggle with the shift into IT - some just don't get coding, others are great at analysis etc.
 
As others have said, if you are really interested in IT (and preferably are already programming or what have you in your spare time) then no reason not to go for it. It always does sound like the brilliant option but it really is one area, I think, where you need to be very interested and, well, just need to find it fun to be able to even think of a career in it. I spent my first five years of proper work in call-centres, first customer service for a software manufacturer then tech support for a hard-drive manufacturer. I was good at it and often considered taking the generous education support programs to get myself an IT degree of some kind or another. But when it came down to it I never did and that was mostly because I just couldn't find the enthusiasm in the quantities needed. The thoughts of classes after work, giving up weekends etc. - left me cold. But when I heard about a ten-week certificate in adult education at UCD none of that mattered because I found the subject interesting. I like learning and education (in the sense of pedagogy) is fascinating to me. What I really wanted to be was a secretary though and that's what I've been doing for the last ten years or so. I might hate the place I work sometimes but I do enjoy the work. Since you have a chance to think about it, you should really think about what it is you want to do from a point of view of what interests you rather than from the point of view of what the government says is a good idea. Contact all the colleges you can think of and get them to send you brochures, google lists of occupations and see what jumps out at you. Try and remember what you wanted to be when you were a kid (I wanted to be a teacher or a secretary or maybe an air hostess, so I tend to think trying to remember this is not as far-fetched as it might seem, if the only thing you wanted to be was Superman, for example, you might not think the same :) ). Finally, I've heard great things about the book What Colour is Your Parachute, you could try getting that and seeing where it leads you. You do have to remain practical, obviously, but we spend too much time in work to not make an effort to be doing something we enjoy.
 
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