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Tech Layoffs More Than Double In Bay Area (mercurynews.com) 203

Posted by msmash from the it's-alarming,-but-don't-panic-yet dept.
An anonymous reader shares an article on Mercury News: In yet another sign of a slowdown in the booming Bay Area economy, tech layoffs more than doubled in the first four months of this year compared to the same period last year (could be paywalled, here's an alternate source). Yahoo's 279 workers let go this year contributed to the 3,135 tech jobs lost in the four-county region of Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and San Francisco counties from January through April, as did the 50 workers axed at Toshiba America in Livermore and the 71 at Autodesk in San Francisco. In the first four months of last year, just 1,515 Bay Area tech workers were laid off, according to mandatory filings under California's WARN Act. For that period in 2014, the region's tech layoffs numbered 1,330. The jump comes amid a litany of other signs that the tech economy may be taking a breather: disappointing earning reports from stalwarts like Apple, an IPO market that has come to a near standstill, a volatile stock exchange and uncertainty in China.
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Tech Layoffs More Than Double In Bay Area More

Tech Layoffs More Than Double In Bay Area

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  • Number H1B requests to go up as well. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Friday May 13, 2016 @10:15AM (#52104467)

    Number H1B requests to go up as well.

    • Re:Number H1B requests to go up as well. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 13, 2016 @10:56AM (#52104839)

      Number H1B requests to go up as well.

      I like how everyone here is a Libertarian until their jobs are at stake. Makes me laugh every time.

      (What should we name these types of hypocrites? I propose Glib-ertarians.)

  • Congress and Zuck will still call for more H1-B's and STEM education in schools, because there's not enough tech talent out there /rollseyes

  • Is it a slowdown? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 13, 2016 @10:17AM (#52104489)

    Just looking at layoffs only shows half the equation. How many jobs were added during the same period?

    From TFA:
    "Today the Bay Area's total employment of 3,353,600 as of the end of March still reflects job growth, with102,600 workers added from March 2015 through March 2016."

  • The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling! (Score:5, Informative)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Friday May 13, 2016 @10:22AM (#52104527)
    In other news from TFA, big companies are still adding workers while other companies are laying off workers:

    The Bay Area's skyrocketing tech layoffs reflect a transformation in the sector, said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

    "We are being increasingly driven by the growth of the large companies," Levy said. "What you did not see on the list is layoffs from Apple or Google or Facebook or LinkedIn ... which are all expanding. This is the era of the large companies."

    In short, it's not all doom-and-gloom in the Valley.

    • Re:The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Friday May 13, 2016 @10:27AM (#52104577) Journal

      This is the era of the large companies

      Sounds like gloom and doom to me.

    • all large companies in the bay area abuse the h1b program.

      when I go for an interview, many times I'm the only caucasion there; and everyone else is indian.

      does this fairly represent the locale? does this give fair chance to those born and raised here?

      I've been out of work since march of this year.

      I'm really tired of this shit. work a job for a bit, then get laid off and be off for months if not longer. for now until I die, it will probably be like this.

      its a wonder tech ceo's have not been targets of vio

      • Re:The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling! (Score:5, Informative)

        by swb ( 14022 ) on Friday May 13, 2016 @10:47AM (#52104753)

        its a wonder tech ceo's have not been targets of violence. just give it time, though. to create local 'terrorists' all you need is to push people to the edge where they think they have nothing left.

        If you look at the history of labor conflict in the US, it's often staggering how much violence there was. And not just sticks and stones conflict between police and pickets, but armed conflict waged more like a militia battle where it took Federal troops to impose order.

        And the ugly side of it was sometimes racially motivated, with groups killing Chinese or other ethnic groups wholesale, believing their lower wages were stealing jobs.

        It's hard to see that happening these days, but I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe we're better people, maybe because the economics of it aren't as dire as being an unemployed miner in Montana in 1880.

      • I'm really tired of this shit. work a job for a bit, then get laid off and be off for months if not longer. for now until I die, it will probably be like this.

        FFS, isn't it obvious: Leave Sillicon Valley and run for your life! The obscene cost of living leads to sky-high wages which means that when a small company hits a speed bump, mathematics requires them to dump staff much much faster than it would in a market where, say, a VMware admin (not architect, but admin) makes a salary more reasonable than the $140k that seems to be the floor for that role out there. For much of the United States, that's like 35-40% premium.

        Move someplace less "trendy," and more "stable," and you'll find your job disappearing far less often. Besides the dot-com bust, I've never once lost a job I didn't want to lose. And even that dot-com situation wasn't really my fault: Our company restated earnings and laid off thousands at the same time Arthur Andersen went under in Chicago, so I was competing with people 20 years older than me with 20 years more experience, and the only offer I fielded was for like $25k--take it or leave it!--so I left. Moved to less trendy, less exciting Indianapolis, and have been employed ever since. Cost of living is low, and I still make a good six figure salary--which goes a helluva lot further than $140k goes in the Valley.

        • This is true- the only time I have been laid off was for a California company...

        • I totally agree, except I think many of the people trying to hang on out there are still living the dream / fantasy that they've got a shot at being one of the tech "elite".

          It's not unlike Hollywood. If you're an aspiring actor, actress or filmmaker, you can practice your craft ANYWHERE in the country, and nearly anywhere for less money than it would cost you to try to live near or in Hollywood. But chances are, you'll need to get out there to meet face-to-face with other big players you need to know in ord

    • It goes: Layoffs, price reductions, new products, new jobs. The price reductions come from paying fewer peoples's wages per product sold.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by serbanp ( 139486 )

        There is no correlation between the four events you're listing.

        Oftentimes layoffs are done to prop up the stock value or to move more money towards the top.

        A price reduction has no positive influence on the development of new products. Maybe the last one (if you swap it) may make any sense.

        The truth is that in the vast majority of situations where a company does deep layoffs the outcome is even worse in the longer term. Low morale and extra stress, productive time lost due to re-arranging the company's stru

        • You mean corporations keep people employed when they don't make a profit, and lay off people who produce a profit for the business even though this means they'll be made poorer?

          Maybe the last one (if you swap it) may make any sense.

          The last two are kind of tandem. To produce a new product, you need consumer buying power. You don't go out and say, "I have invented SMART PHONES! Buy them!" and consumers just buy them. Either the consumer stops buying something else (and some people over there lose their jobs) or the consumer had a wad of cash unspent and n

    • Also, the vast majority of all businesses fail. And that's no less true in tech. Failing businesses mean layoffs. And a lot of businesses being started means a lot of businesses failing. What would be more illuminating would be data as to how long the laid-off workers stay out of work, vs. bouncing into another startup or, as you mention, one of the larger companies.

      Personally, I'm not going to start worrying until the contacts from recruiters trying to lure me out of my current job falls below a dull r

  • Net number of tech jobs actually increased (Score:5, Informative)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Friday May 13, 2016 @10:34AM (#52104643)
    From the article:

    "Today the Bay Area's total employment of 3,353,600 as of the end of March still reflects job growth, with102,600 workers added from March 2015 through March 2016."

    In other words, the tech job market is healthy as ever, which includes a natural migration of jobs away from unproductive and unsuccessful companies to those which are better managed.

    • Re:Net number of tech jobs actually increased (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Friday May 13, 2016 @10:37AM (#52104669) Homepage Journal
      How dare you inject facts into this discussion!

      • Please don't have this discussion. People discussing economics online overloads my circuits. It's cringeworthy. Folks tell me I need to not worry about idiots, but then you see people raising minimum wages and all this economic fall-out and the slow recovery *because* of the higher wages, while people ignore newer-style policies which accomplish more, create more jobs, and actually reduce poverty, and you can't really pretend the loud voice of people who don't know what in the fuck they're babbling abou

        • Slow recovery because burger flippers are earning an extra $5 per hour? Fascinating. I didn't know the US economy depended so much on $5.

          • It's more abstract than that. Not exactly a false analogy, but not quite straight on.

            People are all invested in trickle-down economics: money is economy, and the jobs come from businesses or from your hard-work. In other words: either a business sells something or a person gets themselves a job; the rich are greedy and the poor are lazy. This leads them to the belief that higher wages are paid by businesses.

            The truth is wages are paid by consumers. Consumers spend their income on goods until they

            • Baloney. I didn't even bother to read past the first paragraph of your treatise. You need to travel a bit more and see the real world. There is a big world out there where real poverty exists and people would be glad to get jobs that pay a pittance, even compared to the median salary in their region. They don't find jobs "easy to get". An extra $4 for a low wage American worker isn't going to collapse the economy. The American economy is massive, it doesn't depend on what we are paying for minimum wage. Get

              • So you're proud of your ignorance, and then attacking me for what you assert is mine?

                Maybe you're just wrong. You're also still arguing trickle-down economics and haven't actually addressed any point I made.

                • I am just not going to read every Keynesian rant online. Ridiculous. Go to India and see how people live. Come back and revise your rant.

                  • Solow would be closer than Keynes. Keynes suggests the Government should spend more and tax less in hard economic times; I'm talking about economics in a general sense, which includes fair-weather markets as well as foul, rather than Keynesian "what do we do to fix our now-broken economy?" approach to economic downturns.

                    You're also making an emotional appeal talking about "how people live", rather than "how economies function."

                    In India, circa 1970, they were producing 2 tonnes of rice per hectare at c

  • "As job growth slows and the cost of living remains as high as it is, that's going to put many people in a difficult position"

    "Expect the crime rate to go up."

    The single most pronounced governing factor for crime rate is unemployment. As the weeks of unemployment drag into months, people get desperate, and do stuff they would never otherwise even dream of.

  • It's going to be in some location where the cost of living is lower and the local public doesn't treat the industry with contempt.

    • Yup, it seems to be happening here in Utah. The amount of growth is pretty crazy. Unfortunately they treat a lot of us like H1B workers but onshore, so a lot of not so great development is 'outsourced' here. That said, the pay is finally starting to catch up to reality. A lot of the local companies have had a hard time adjusting in that they used to be able to pay very little, so they are having to realize you can't get a senior programmer with lots of experience for the salaries they used to offer anym

      • The problems I can see with living in Utah are 1) the air pollution in SLC is reportedly awful, the worst in the nation in fact, 2) if you're a single guy, there's probably no single women there who aren't religious (and most likely Mormon, even worse), and 3) the local culture is probably rather conservative. There is some really amazing outdoor stuff in Utah, but that's all in *southern* Utah, which is not a close drive from the SLC area. Utah is a huge state, like most western states, but all the popul

        • The problems I can see with living in Utah are 1) the air pollution in SLC is reportedly awful, the worst in the nation in fact, 2) if you're a single guy, there's probably no single women there who aren't religious (and most likely Mormon, even worse), and 3) the local culture is probably rather conservative. There is some really amazing outdoor stuff in Utah, but that's all in *southern* Utah, which is not a close drive from the SLC area. Utah is a huge state, like most western states, but all the population is in the north.

          So I don't really see how that's a better quality-of-life than Silicon Valley:

          I have lived in SLC and I don't think your view of the place matches reality.

          pollution: advantage SV

          SLC has a pollution problem but it is a seasonal problem, it only happens in the winter and only happens when weather conditions are correct (temperature inversion). SV also has a pollution problem but it is year-round, although somewhat mitigated by the sea/land breeze effect.

          singles scene: both bad (but at least what few single women exist in SV are probably not religious or Mormon)

          There are plenty of women in SLC who are not mormon, when I lived there I believe the city was about 50% mormon. That doesn't mean that all 50% are practic

    • As someone who grew up in one of those lower-cost-of-living places, the problem is getting a critical mass of smart people to move there. It's absolutely insane that every startup feels they need to be in the Bay Area, especially in 2015. However, let's say you start up a software company in Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, or any other Rust Belt place. Unless you have a diverse economy and/or big university with good academic programs (and yes, that's not just CS...) getting talent to move there is going to be

  • WARN Act numbers only tell part of the story, as they only reflect mass layoffs. And even then, there are reporting exemptions [ca.gov]. For example, "California WARN does not apply when the closing or layoff is the result of the completion of a particular project or undertaking of an employer". And then, there's this loophole: "Notice of a relocation or termination is not required where, under multiple and specific conditions, the employer submits documents to the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) and the DI

  • It's 1999/2000 again (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ErichTheRed ( 39327 ) on Friday May 13, 2016 @11:00AM (#52104877)

    This Internet bubble has lasted a little longer than the last one, and there isn't any one thing you can point to that's absolutely ridiculous this time (pets.com sock puppet, theglobe.com IPO, etc.) But, the VC money has been drying up again, and this forces startups to get rid of staff. There was an article a couple of days ago on Slashdot about Dropbox cutting some of the crazy perks they've been giving out to attract "the best and the brightest" like free meals and laundry.

    This is the natural cycle of things, even in big companies. Some places I've worked for routinely over-hire or have staff doing jobs that don't really need to be done during the good times. When things turn bad, bloodbath city. Look at HP cutting 30,000 employees lately - i guarantee that was them finally digesting the last of EDS and dumping the random redundant assistant account liaison executives, etc. The place I currently work for is majority-owned by Europeans, so the opposite is true. You have to prove completely the demonstrated need for a new position, partially because it's harder to just dump people on the street in Europe than it is here. As a result, there are layoffs but they're much smaller and require a bigger downturn than most medium-ish companies would to start hauling out the axe. Length of service around here is pretty long as a result, because people are doing more work than the average IT person stuck in a very narrow silo of activity.

    It will be interesting to see what happens, especially in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. I would never move there because of housing costs (and this is coming from a New Yorker...) I can definitely see bigger companies with deeper pockets scooping up the actual smart people, and a huge unemployment nightmare for the hangers-on. Remember how many paper MCSEs and HTML "programmers" there were out of work in 2001!

  • This is just another sign that California is circling the drain. For example, my last job in the state I was doing IT Admin work for a decently sized company and was making $11 and hour. In addition to this I was told they only wanted me to work 35 hours a week so that they wouldn't have to pay me any benefits. At the end of my first year when I found that the company as a whole had made 752 Million, a whopping 89 Million more than the previous year and 149 more than the year before that, I asked for a 25

    • California as a state imposes way to many taxes and regulations on business. If you decided you were going to try and start a business in California you might as well just flush your money down the toilet instead.

      I left California for Oregon in '95, since it was apparent even back then which direction it was headed. There is a very good reason why even California businesses are moving employees out of California, and your analysis of the problems is spot on.

      • Yet the article saying 165,000 jobs were added in the Bay area during that same time period. It is amazing how facts contradict your "analysis".
    • If you are making $11 "and hour" in IT in California there is something wrong with YOU.
      • That would be the Dell Techs, the new Geek Squad. I've seen job listings for $11 to $17 per hour and $0.35 to $0.50 per mile reimbursement.
      • Yeah, the problem was I wasn't getting paid enough to get the fuck out. Thankfully and sadly a family member died. I was able to pay off my debts and move. Best decision I ever made in my entire 30 year life. I now have a 45k salary job with full benefits, payed time off the works. The company isn't huge, the employees are friendly and my commute into work is 30 minutes from the house I bought outright for $85,500. Good luck doing that in Cali.
  • Yahoo shouldn't be counted in the statistics; they don't have a viable business plan or even a clue (which won't keep Marissa Meyer from getting her $55 million golden parachute.) All Yahoo jobs should just be written off. On the bright side, if this keeps up, people in the Bay Area might someday actually be able to afford housing again! Or at least, the few who still have jobs...

  • Real oxymoron here is "H1B layoff"

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