Others are keen to find out if they can access their pension savings to help them through what they expect to be some tough times ahead.
I have been made redundant six times and in normal circumstances my advice to people is that it is a great opportunity to take stock.
Positive thinking
Losing a job is how I went freelance in the first place, which opened me up to lots of interesting and different opportunities, for instance.
Tim Harris, boss of ChipsAway, Ovenclean and Barking Mad, which are owned by Franchise Brands, is an advocate of that positive thinking.
“Without sounding glib, I prefer to call recessions ‘reset sessions’, as they provide people the headspace to think about what they actually want from their career,” he says.
“Perhaps they’ve always hated their commute; maybe they’ve continually been ignored for promotion or might even think their skills lie best outside the industry they currently service.
“Redundancy provides the headspace to start thinking like an entrepreneur. For many, it will be the push they needed to venture into self-employment.”
But with such uncertainty ahead, it is not going to be easy for everyone to face the prospect with such positivity.
Adviser help
Many people will simply fall into survival mode, which will mean that friends and trusted advisers will be crucially important to them.
Financial advisers must keep up-to-date with clients’ work situations and be ready to offer professional help when it is needed.
It will almost certainly be needed by anyone who does lose their job, whether it is to reassess their financial arrangements, or to choose what assets to realise to help them through the months ahead.
Retirement planning in particular could be hit, which will mean reaffirming the importance of pension nest eggs.
People are likely to need help in deciding what to do with their company pensions now they no longer work for a company, which in some cases they could have been with for decades.
Some of the advice will be hard for people to take and some tough decisions may be needed.
Clients are likely to scrap whatever careful financial planning they had in place, which means there have to be fresh plans put in place.
The uncertainty ahead means financial adviser roles have never been more important to clients.
And helping them make the right choices could help restore the industry’s slightly tarnished image, which could be something positive to emerge from the current mess.
Simon Read is a freelance journalist
