Friday, December 26, 2008

Silicon Valley Braces for Firings as Technology Outlook Worsens

From Bloomberg, December 24, 2008...

Silicon Valley, the technology mecca once considered immune to fallout from the global financial meltdown, now faces the biggest cutbacks since the dot-com crash.

“Lots of my friends have been laid off,” Peter Raulwing, a project manager for Microsoft Corp., said during lunch at a Starbucks in Palo Alto, California. “I absolutely watch what I spend. I feel lucky I’ve survived, but you never really know.”

He has reason for concern. Global spending on computers and software will slide 8 percent next year in the U.S., Western Europe and Japan, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. With a 7 percent unemployment rate, Silicon Valley has about 4,000 fewer jobs today than this time last year, the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy said last week.

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