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In SIlicon Valley: Profits up. Employment Down.

Posted by Hemos on from the as-the-wheel-grinds-forward dept.

popo writes "The New York Times (free yada yada) has an interesting report on the changing landscape of Silicon Valley tech companies: Profits are soaring but employment figures are not. This dynamic points to significant future shifts down the road for Silicon Valley companies like Electronic Arts and Cisco. Interestingly, the culprit isn't just outsourcing. Huge leaps in worker productivity and automated processes are also responsible for the decreased need for new labor."

1 of 435 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Mandatory overtime by James+Youngman · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It was for the ability to obtain an "emergency tolerant" skillset.
    You could lose a good few staff from any area, and your knowledge base wasn't significantly impacted.
    An important metric for any software project is its Truck Number. This is the minimum number of your staff that would need to be hit by a runaway truck hitting a bus queue in order to completely derail your project.

    So, if your project truck number is 2, you could afford to lose one member of staff due to a random event (sickness, quitting, etc.) but not two.