The global body count in the tech sector has risen above 500,000 in July 2009. Since the correction, recession, economic melt-down started in earnest in October 2008, about 505,477 tech-related jobs have been right-sized, down-sized, resource actions eliminated. January 2009 is the worst month for employees with nearly 164,000 tech jobs eliminated. October 2008 saw over 56,000 workers pink-slipped. Approximately 53,500 tech workers we laid off in both December 2008 and February 2009. The last two months have shown a decline in the numbers of tech workers getting the ax. In June 2009, 4,326 workers were laid off, the smallest monthly count since the economic meltdown started. July 2009 witnessed 12,65 layoffs, most from Verizon. The July count is also well below the average 50,000 lay-offs a month pace being set during the economic meltdown.
rb-
These numbers say to me that we are still in for a long hard year before anything like a real turn-around emerges. So despite what Newsweek says, the recession is not over.
Among the firms that generated these layoffs are:
- Circuit City 34,000 layoffs
- HP (HPQ) 30,000 layoffs
- NEC Corporation (6701) 20,000 layoffs
- Tyco 20,000 layoffs
- IBM (IBM) 18,000 layoffs
- AT&T (T) 16,600 layoffs
- Sony (SNE) 16,000 layoffs
- BT (BT) 15,000 layoffs
- Panasonic (PCRFY) 15,000 layoffs
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.