Where the Tech Jobs Are - and Aren't

Seattle sheds fewest tech workers during recession

Seattle was the safest place to be a tech worker during the dark employment days of 2009.

The home of Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc.  was the only one of the 10 largest U.S. technology hubs to not suffer a drop in tech employment during the recession, according to a new report from the industry’s largest trade group.

By comparison, 53 of the largest 60 U.S. tech hubs shed jobs last year.

“Seattle held up well relative to the other big tech centers,” said Josh James, vice president of industry research at the TechAmerica Foundation, which compiled the report.

Based on data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, the report also showed that the New York City metro area, with 317,000 tech workers, had the most industry jobs in 2009, the latest period for which the BLS has combined annual industry and metro area information.

Being close to the halls of power also was good for tech employment prospects, as Washington D.C. remained the second-largest tech employer, with 293,000 workers.

San Jose is No. 3, and when its tech jobs are added to those in adjacent San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., the Silicon Valley total of 394,000 made the region the nation’s largest tech hub. Nearly one in three San Jose area workers were employed by a technology company, by far the highest concentration of tech workers in the U.S.

The data is based on industry, not occupation, so an office manager at Cisco Systems Inc. or an accountant at Hewlett-Packard Co.  would be included, but a computer science researcher at a university or an IT operations manager at a big bank would not.

Jump and yell Yahoo!

After three rounds of layoffs in two years, Yahoo workers who have survived the cuts may find that the fun is just beginning, tech recruiters say.

While the short-term stress of waiting for a possible pink slip is gone, more change is imminent after the company axed 4% of its workforce.

The day after the layoffs, Yahoo said in a blog post it will phase out its video hosting service for users of its social networking service.“The weak parts of its business will get weeded out,” said David Clark, president of the Silicon Valley recruiting firm Mindsource.

Many Yahoos will have to adapt to new roles and situations, especially in the product group, where the cuts hit hardest.

Meanwhile, Yahoo workers who are in a comfortable, stable job situation may be tempted to just continue going about their daily tasks — after first breathing a sigh of relief.

In fact, Clark said, he has a friend who codes software at Yahoo who goes into work everyday and enjoys his job while ignoring the company’s larger strategic challenges.

“There are still a lot of good people there working on cool, interesting things,” Clark said.

Still, given Yahoo’s recent history, employees there may want to spend some time on LinkedIn to buff up their resumes.

Before it fired 600 workers this week, Yahoo cut 700 workers in the second quarter of 2009 and 1,400 in Dec., 2008.

Yahoo workers “need to manage their careers while they still have leverage,” said Steve Kasmouski, a partner with Winter, Wyman who runs that recruiting firm’s software technology group in Boston.

The problem with cruising along is that “you wake up one day and say ‘oh my gosh, it’s too late’,” Kasmouski said.

“You don’t want to be the last one out” of a business or unit that fails, he said.

Since Yahoo’s board of directors rejected a takeover offer from Microsoft in early 2008, the company’s stock price has been roughly chopped in half. 

John Shinal writes about tech-industry career and hiring trends for FINS, a service of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network.  

From MarketTechWatch