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Tech Layoffs More Than Double In Bay Area (mercurynews.com)
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.
Number H1B requests to go up as well.
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
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 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.
So where are the jobs going? Some of it may be due to downsizing, but I bet mostly the jobs are simply moving. Actually, moving jobs out of the bay area is a no-brainer because there are better job markets elsewhere in the country. It used to be that you had to go to the bay area to find people to fill certain tech jobs, but that just isn't the case anymore, but I wonder if the bulk of these jobs are staying within the country or going to Asia.
All those reasons are nonsense. The real reasons are a destroyed economy with no hope of getting from under the crashing debt, taxes, regulations, laws, the insane levels of inflation (money creation by the Fed and banks lending for consumption due to government guarantees).
USA economy is a walking talking zombie. It is unfortunate bit it will get much worse before restructuring of the debts and massive reduction of government spending and thus massive reduction in taxes and regulations will let it get any better.
Oh, by the way, China does not have economic problems at all compared to the USA compared to what is being 'reported'. China'd only problem is subsidising USA consumption and creating its own inflation for that purpose. USD collapsed will fix that.
You can't handle the truth.
I had a manager who thought of himself as the next Jack Welch, implemented a bottom 10% firing policy, and drove out the top 10% out of the company. I was the third out of a dozen senior lead testers who responded to the manager's "his way or the highway" speech by submitting my resignation. He drove the company all the way into bankruptcy. Not surprisingly, he blamed other people for that disaster.
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.
"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.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
WARN Act numbers only tell part of the story, as they only reflect mass layoffs. And even then, there are reporting exemptions. 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 DIR determines that the employer was actively seeking capital or business, and a WARN notice would have precluded the employer from obtaining the capital or business."
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 anymore. Some are finally starting to pay up, others are just complaining about 'no available workers'. We are probably still on the upswing, but will probably be peaking soon.
Housing is still relatively cheap and if you can deal with the local politics (i.e. ignore most of it) the outdoor opportunities are amazing. Quality of life is so much better than living in Silicon Valley.
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!
Jack Welch only did this for management staff. I think most people who have had to deal with idiot managers stuck at the level of their incompetence (the Peter Principle) and clogging up the system for everyone under them, won't find this such a terrible idea. However, it also only really worked for GE because it was an exceptional company, so the bottom 10% of managers there were still in the upper levels of management experience/ability in general. I have heard (from someone who used a recruiter who worked with Welch) that they didn't even need to fire the bottom managers. They just passed their details along to the headhunters circling the company and those people had a new job within a week.
It sounds like your manager was like those little Steve Jobs' that populate the tech industry and believe they can have world class design on third world budgets.
Why hypocrites? A shortage of talent AND layoffs can actually coexist within the same company. If you need Linux Developers and you've just dropped your unsuccessful Mac or Windows product and laid off the entire devision, how does that suddenly add to the pool of Linux Developers? The folks being laid off are picked over for talent worth retaining in light of current company needs. The ones whose jobs are eliminated but are not sufficiently skilled to be deployed elsewhere within the company are let go.
My questions are:
* Should companies continue to make products no one wants in order to avoid layoffs?
* Should they retain employees who used to support Windows but cannot support Linux (or vice versa) and call them Talented on the new platform?
Thanks,
- Wiz
I wonder if this actually helps things. Does the churn of employees every year actually beat dealing with someone who might be unlucky to not make the cut? It might not be their fault. I've seen sales managers get handed dud employees, just so the manager gets booted come the next mass firing. If someone is already underperforming, shouldn't it be caught by the normal performance review process which is part of HR's job?
I know it is cool to pretend to be the head honcho on the Apprentice and yell, "you're fired" to people, but does this make actual business sense, with regards to morale and such? That ill will can last a long time. I have personally seen contracts lost when someone from company "A" gets fired, starts at company "B" who is company "A"'s main customer, and then changes from company "A" to company "C" just out of spite... and those contracts mean a lot more money than just a salary or two.
Why hypocrites?
A shortage of talent AND layoffs can actually coexist within the same company.
If you need Linux Developers and you've just dropped your unsuccessful Mac or Windows product and laid off the entire devision, how does that suddenly add to the pool of Linux Developers?
The folks being laid off are picked over for talent worth retaining in light of current company needs. The ones whose jobs are eliminated but are not sufficiently skilled to be deployed elsewhere within the company are let go.
My questions are:
* Should companies continue to make products no one wants in order to avoid layoffs?
* Should they retain employees who used to support Windows but cannot support Linux (or vice versa) and call them Talented on the new platform?
Thanks,
- Wiz
Answer: The employer should offer retraining to the affected employees so they can transition from software development for Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X, to use your example, to GNU/Linux. Some employees will refuse retraining and prefer to be laid-off - fine. However, I dare say many of the existing software developers will opt for retraining. The fundamental skills remain the same although the operating system specific aspects should be the focus of the transition.
You've worked at a company where they actually move people instead of doing a dump and hire? Can you hear me all the way back in the 1950s?
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 cent raise and was laughed at. Seriously. I was then asked if I thought I was worth that much of a raise to which I responded: yes. yes I am. I got that raise after my third year with the company but by then I didn't care anymore. The problem is that shit rolls down hill. 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. It's a quicker way to get rid of it. All of these restrictions hurt the companies bottom line and they have to make that up somewhere and that means either paying you minimum wage instead of what everyone else makes for your job, or finding someone from from out of country who will do the job for minimum wage. Thankfully I moved to Washington and within 5 months got a contract job paying literally twice as much per hour and at 40 hours a week no less. And to top that off the job was actually easier. I swear the only reason people live in Cali is for the weather. If you can count perpetual sun and annual forest fires as "weather"
Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
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...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
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:
pollution: advantage SV
singles scene: both bad (but at least what few single women exist in SV are probably not religious or Mormon)
outdoor stuff: a long drive from either place
local politics: advantage SV (not great, but at least not LDS-dominated)
local culture: advantage SV (again, not dominated by conservative religious nuts; I'll take annoying Fedora-wearing hipsters over religious loons any day)
housing costs: advantage SLC
Sorry, but there's a lot more to life than housing cost. If you want cheap housing, I can find you lots of places across the country, particularly in the rural Midwest, where housing is dirt cheap. There's no work and almost no local economy and very few people, but hey! housing is cheap!
I wasn't intending to refer to what is essentially (as you pointed out), a lateral move, but I see that I could have done much better in framing my question. I was attempting to refer to the issue of a whole new skill set needing to be acquired in order to provide value to the company in a new role.
For example, I haven't seen a majority of sys admins who can successfully transition from Tech Support to Developer in a short enough period of time with enough skill as a developer to qualify as "Talented" in software development. There's a difference between the two skill sets/ways of thinking that are not necessarily trainable. If they were, then I would expect good software developers to be plentiful and demand much lower salaries. They honestly don't appear to be. I've done both jobs, and I personally don't think I use the same skills in both tasks.
I'll rephrase the question, with perhaps a more apropos (to my point) example:
* Should companies retain employees who are incapable of transitioning from their previous job (let's say Phone Support for a discontinued product) to a new role (say Enterprise Linux Administration) where the current need is?
In my experience, good in one IT role doesn't mean good in ANY IT role.
- Wiz
So which "lucky" company hired him after that?
That *is* the usual pattern I've found. Take high level position and mismanage business into the ground. Get hired someplace else to rinse and repeat, because your connections at that level "look out for each other".
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 order to make it onto the big screen via any of the major production companies.
(If you just want to do independent film? Then yeah, who cares? You'll have a less stress-filled life doing that elsewhere.)
Personally, I quit aspiring to be the next mover and shaker of the tech world sometime in my late 20's. I still love doing I.T. but I prefer my current situation where I live in a small town where you get a 2,200 sq. foot house for a little over $200,000, there's beautiful scenery, historical places to see nearby, and a sub 6-figure salary as a network/system admin. is enough to get by and raise a family. No prestige of working for a Google, an Apple or a Facebook -- but the job is stable and I even wound up working with a couple of long-time friends.
Real oxymoron here is "H1B layoff"
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 practicing mormons. It shouldn't be too hard to avoid religious people if that is what you want.
outdoor stuff: a long drive from either place
Southern Utah is not the only place with outdoor activities. Northern Utah's metro areas are built in the valleys of the Wasatch Mountains which provide a ton of outdoor recreational opportunities like hiking, rock climbing, mountain or road biking, hunting, fishing, boating and some of the world's top ski resorts. All within 1/2-1 hour of SLC.
local politics: advantage SV (not great, but at least not LDS-dominated)
SLC is quite liberal, according to Wikipedia 5 of 7 city council members are democrats as well as the mayor. You are correct on the state level, overall the politics are quite conservative. This is good in some ways - state and local taxes are much lower than SV and if you are running your own business you will have less regulation but if you are pretty liberal you might find state politics in Utah not to your liking.
local culture: advantage SV (again, not dominated by conservative religious nuts; I'll take annoying Fedora-wearing hipsters over religious loons any day)
I agree, fedora'd hipsters are preferred to religious loons, but what makes you think that the religious loons have anything to do with "local culture"? I'm not sure what you are talking about here, is it plays and operas or is it bars and clubs? Like I mentioned above, the city itself is pretty liberal and offers a variety of entertainment, but being a smaller metro area than SF there probably won't be the huge breadth of options that SV has.
housing costs: advantage SLC
Sorry, but there's a lot more to life than housing cost. If you want cheap housing, I can find you lots of places across the country, particularly in the rural Midwest, where housing is dirt cheap. There's no work and almost no local economy and very few people, but hey! housing is cheap!
Indeed. The trick is to find somewhere with relatively cheap housing combined with a decent local economy. SLC fits the bill somewhat. It is attractive to tech companies, particularly for satellite sites, because of the low costs (rents, utilities, taxes, etc.) and high level of education in relation to the rest of the USA. There are many SV-based companies that have offices in the SLC metro area like Google, eBay, Symantec and EMC.
Overall, SLC has its good points and bad points but overall it isn't a terrible place to live. If you are looking for somewhere to work a decent tech job without having to pay more than $1 million for a house than you can do worse.
Enigma
Executive compensation continues its stellar climb unabated.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
So which "lucky" company hired him after that?
Customer support at a car rental company. Not everyone who burns down the company gets a promotion with the next job.
That is not happening now, pay is stagnating.
Speak for yourself. Unemployment in Silicon Valley is quite low. I got recruiters offering 40% more in pay to jump ship.
"Should companies retain employees who are incapable of transitioning"
Of course not, they are business, not charities.
"(let's say Phone Support for a discontinued product) to a new role (say Enterprise Linux Administration) "
Why not going from janitor to CFO instead?
Or, wait, why not going from Phone Support for a discontinued product to Phone Support for the new product line?
There will always be people that won't retrain but, for the vast majority it is that the company won't train -at all. What you'll see is not trying to make a borderliner telephone operator into a network engineer; what you see is a senior sysadmin with deep knowledge being fired because he's not been exposed to, say, Ansible or Amazon and a youngster with minimal knowledge of those tools and null knowledge about what to really do with them being hired insted (if IT doesn't get just outsourced, that is).
To promote Entrepreneurs/Startups
1. Impose tax on corporate revenues, not profits
2. Regulate market capitalization of corporations
http://wh.gov/iojPx
Casteism