Recession, Redundancy, and ... Rethinking.

Any one who has been watching the news the past few days will know that several more companies have gone into administration. In fact, anyone who has walked down a high street in recent months will have been able to see the events of the recession unfolding slowly but surely. For me, it's been like watching a car crash, when you absolutely want to look away but you can't.
I thought that as a student, the "credit crunch" (I hate that term) would hardly affect me. I get a lot of help financially, thankfully, as my mum fully supports furthering my education. I did however still need to keep a weekend job, which my MA allows as I'm only in three days a week, freeing me for plenty of time for independent study and a job.
I walked through Eldon Shopping Centre today in Newcastle, and rows upon rows of shops either had neon "sale/70% off everything" or "closing down, final reductions" signs in the windows.
Whittard's of Chelsea, USC, Zavvi...
I work for a very well known chain of bookshops which announced it had a great turnover during the Xmas holidays. Imagine my surprise when I was called in for a special "national" meeting at 9am on Monday morning, my day off.
"Understand that this is the first I have heard of anything," the manager told the staff as we shifted uncomfortably in our chairs. There was no mention of the fact that he had kept us waiting for 1o minutes for this apparently important meeting to begin.
"There are going to be cutbacks," he continued as he read from a printed off email. I stared at the back of the translucent piece of paper he held in his hands, and it was no longer than four paragraphs. "The company will be letting members of the team go, and those most at threat are the ones who work in goods-in, and returns."
I heard a deep growl to my left, and turned to observe my colleague whose eyes had narrowed at the words. He has worked for the company for four years, while some of the newer staff had only been taken on since before Xmas.
When the manager finished the announcement, the loud silence and oppressive tension made him glance nervously from bookseller to bookseller. "If anyone wants to talk, I'll be in my office."
And that was that.
The sense of fury that flooded over me was not due to the fact that something we had anticipated all weekend since it had been announced we would be having this "special" meeting, had been confirmed. It was the way in which the news had been delivered to us lowly booksellers. The corporation had not even seen it fit to say more than a few paragraphs to the people who kept them in their comfortable office chairs in London, and had mounted the anticipation for a 5 minute brief. On a Monday morning.
I thought about who it would affect the most. Were they asking for voluntary redundancies? How would they decide who to let go?
Do I quit my job then, so that my colleague can feed his family, or my other colleague can pay her mortgage?
Who said that recession doesn't affect students?