Tech Layoffs on Big Q1 Upswing, Far Outpacing Average
When outsourcing consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas released its figures on job cuts in January and February, the numbers were depressing, with the two months figure almost double the same period in 2008 and close to the number of job cuts in the first six months of last year. But the picture is much worse for high tech, with layoffs in January and February almost quadruple those in the full first quarter of 2008 and far in excess of the portion of the economy that the sector represents.
As I've mentioned before, according to numbers from Challenger, tech layoffs in 2008 were hardly a high water mark. From 2001 through 2008, last year was only the fifth highest number of job losses in the industry. But the numbers are rapidly starting to look progressively worse. The table below, put together for us by Challenger for an apples-to-apples comparison, shows the layoff patterns in electronics, computers, and telecom:
Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Sector Total | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Electronics | 5,928 | 4,073 | 6,884 | 25,177 | 42,062 |
Computer | 4,840 | 10,429 | 28,733 | 20,858 | 64,860 |
Telecom | 6,577 | 19,142 | 2,652 | 20,277 | 48,648 |
Q Total | 17,345 | 36,644 | 38,269 | 66,312 | 155,570 |
Even without March in place, the quarterly job losses are already at 387 percent of last year's first quarter, or double the average. As the total number of job cuts for January and February was 428,009, high tech represented 15.7 percent of all downsizing.
I checked data from the federal government to see how many people were employed in high tech at the end of 2007. There isn't such a single category, so I added numbers from the following individual ones:
Sector | 2007 Figure (thousands) |
---|---|
Computer and electronic products | 1,273 |
Electrical equipment, appliances, and components | 430 |
Broadcasting and telecommunications | 1,371 |
Information and data processing services | 331 |
Computer systems design and related services | 1,369 |
Sector | % of 2007 US GDP |
---|---|
Computer and electronic products | 1.1 |
Electrical equipment, appliances, and components | 0.4 |
Broadcasting and telecommunications | 2.5 |
Information and data processing services | 0.4 |
Computer systems design and related services | 1.2 |
- High tech companies are over-reacting.
- The industry is being hit particularly hard by the slowdown.
- Tech companies had over-hired and are using the recession as an excuse to purge.
[UPDATE: Check the full Q1 picture with March's numbers. There's a little news for encouragement, but things remain largely grim.]
Axe image via Stock.xchng user Marzie, standard site license.