The Hindu Business Line : When recession started to grate

James Caan retells the story of ‘the recession, 1992-1993,’ in one of the chapters in The Real Deal ( www.virginbooks.com). “I couldn’t believe that you could work as hard as I had, absorb that much stress, create that much energy and end up with £1,475. I knew the economy had been going through a tough time, but I was still absolutely stunned when my accountant brought me the end-of-year figure. I was spending more than that a year on petrol.”

The recruitment industry is a mirror of the economy as a whole, because the first thing any chief executive in trouble will do is trim his staff bill, Caan describes. “When people resigned, they simply weren’t replaced. Entire branches of organisations were shut down, and several tiers of management were stripped out: no one was hiring, and the recruitment industry nosedived… The phrase we kept hearing on the phones was ‘headcount freeze,’ and the more it got repeated in the office, the more it started to grate.” Sitting in the car and driving to work in the morning, he would wonder if it was worth it, because there wasn’t anything to do. It’s a strange sensation, Caan confesses, to own a Rolls-Royce and not be sure if you can afford to fill its tank. Recommended read for the weekend.