As someone who works in high tech in southern California, I can give a little insight. There are 2 major high tech areas down here, centered around Irvine and San Diego (home of "Wireless Valley"). We have a lot of well-known companies like PairGain, Western Digital, and Qualcomm in this region, plus hundreds of smaller companies.
I expect big layoffs at companies involved in the PC industry, like WD. Things are tense -- when layoffs in companies have occurred so far, they have been primarily targeted at marketing, manufacturing, and support personnel, but not at the engineering staff. You hear things like, "don't worry, engineers won't be affected". The companies are desperate to hold on to engineers and don't want them to get spooked and abandon ship to a different company. Of course, the companies are probably being cynical about this -- when they have to, they will also cut engineering jobs. The management just wants to get whatever work they can out of the engineers before reducing their numbers.
Paul M. |
