Lol. I'm from Germany. Because everything there is apartment blocks with no verge, the ground floor has quite a stigma attached to it.
Whereas here everything is on the ground floor.
I still dream of a balcony...one day...
Yes I hear some oil&gas things are running out towards the end of this year. Many oil&gas guys are on contracts so if they are not extended, there aren't any redundancies to cushion the blow.