August Tech Job Cuts Way Down from July
In a welcome reversal from July, planned job cuts in the tech sector dropped precipitously — so much so that you might develop a touch of vertigo. It was a better than 88 percent drop from the previous month, far outpacing the overall economy in which planned job cuts were 21 percent lower in August than July, according to figures from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Here’s a summary of the year so far:
| Sector | January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August |
| Electronics | 11,050 | 11,065 | 11,500 | 6,608 | 1,423 | 4,103 | 1,343 | 1,562 |
| Computer | 22,330 | 3,960 | 5,290 | 1,702 | 15,384 | 2,795 | 1,684 | 75 |
| Telecom | 13,056 | 5,666 | 250 | 262 | 812 | 802 | 17,601 | 749 |
| Total | 46,436 | 20,691 | 17,040 | 8,572 | 17,619 | 7,700 | 20,628 | 2,386 |
Whereas telecom represented the largest number of cuts in July, last month it was small, though not as tiny as computers. Here’s a graph of the trends:
At the same time, and with apologies to John Dunne, no economic sector is an island, and overall announced layoffs are 60 percent larger than at the same time last year and near the 2008 total. Plus, tech can’t sell much if there aren’t businesses buying. According to Challenger, here are the top downsizing industries on a year-to-date basis:
Executioner image via stock.xchng user sateda, standard site license.
Erik Sherman is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, the New York Times Magazine, Technology Review, the Financial Times, Chief Executive, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter.
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