Promising Employment News for Techies A recent study has found that job cuts in the technology sector have hit a low point not seen since the period following the end of the recession. "Job cuts are really down significantly from where they were a year ago," said John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Grey & Christmas, the consulting firm that authored the report. In the first quarter, tech-industry job cuts fell almost 34 percent to 39,379, down from 59,537 a year earlier, marking the fourth consecutive quarter during which job cuts fell from their previous-year mark. Companies will continue to increase spending thanks to strong 2005 profits, Challenger said, noting that some companies will be reinvesting in their technology for the first time since the recession. Telecommunications workers bore the brunt of the job cuts, accounting for 23,791 of the 39,379 positions lost in the first quarter. The computing industry saw 10,711 jobs eliminated, and the electronics industry posted cuts of 4,738. With just 139 jobs cut, e-commerce was the least-affected sector. Even with 43 percent of the cuts stemming from mergers, Challenger argued that that figure belies a healthy economy. "The cuts that we're seeing in telecom aren't because companies are doing poorly, it's actually occurring because companies are buying up others and consolidating," he said. "In times when the economy is good, mergers and acquisitions grow, and companies consolidate. Downtimes are less, and people move into better jobs sooner. It may even serve to redistribute people to where the growth is." With the national unemployment rate hitting a three-year low, companies are working more actively to retain the employees they have. So far this year, tech sector job cuts account for 15.4 percent of all job cuts, compared with 16.3 percent last year, according to the report. The percentage of overall job cuts accounted for by tech jobs has declined each of the last five years. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1948573,00.asp
