Sounds like Silicon Valley over the past two years.
After the dot-com meltdown and the wider high-tech slump since then, the fear, frustration and dread produced by the recent stock market dive are old hat here. The main question for the high-tech capital: When will the bad news ever cease?
"Not a single CEO that I've talked to sees any end in sight; it seems like every day unfolds with the knowledge that it can get worse," said Carl Guardino, head of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, an organization of 190 technology companies. "For the grizzled, experienced CEOs in Silicon Valley who have seen every downturn, this is by far the deepest. Time will tell if this is the longest."
Plunging markets certainly don't help matters. Silicon Valley needs the business world's confidence to pick up so the stinginess in corporate technology spending can finally fade.
Meanwhile, while measures to improve corporate accountability might stabilize the markets, technology executives fear that proposed changes in accounting for stock options could slash their already weak profits.
Not surprisingly, a recent San Jose State University survey found that fewer than half of local residents expect business conditions to improve over the next year.
Since the boom went bust, an estimated 100,000 jobs have vanished in Santa Clara County alone, which includes San Jose and is the heart of what is considered Silicon Valley. The county's unemployment rate was 7.6 percent in June, up from 4.4 percent in June 2001 and a remarkable 1.3 percent at the end of 2000.
Mike Curran, director of the NOVA WorkForce Board, an area job agency, said the picture is actually much worse, since many people who live in adjoining counties also can't find work once plentiful in Silicon Valley.
Factoring that in, he said, the job market resembles one with 12 or even 15 percent unemployment. He's seen laid-off engineers applying for jobs that pay $8 an hour, and people in their 40s competing with teen-agers for entry-level positions.
"Every aspect is being touched by the current downturn; it's not only the assembly worker who speaks limited English, it's sometimes managers of their divisions and departments," Curran said. "The sense of the prolonged agony of it multiples as time goes on."
Many people who are working still fear more layoffs, or, at the very least, see constant reminders of the weak business climate. For more than a year, posters in break rooms at Cisco Systems Inc. have reminded employees to be judicious in their consumption of company-supplied beverages, since little every cost adds up.
Still, Silicon Valley doesn't seem to have entirely lost its trademark optimism. Guardino emphasized that most executives are confident that their companies' innovations will drive the next boom.
"I don't think anybody is doom and gloom, even though if you look at the numbers, we should be a little bit more freaked out," said Josef Robey, 25, who was laid off from Internet music flame-out Napster Inc. in March.
With jobs appearing almost nonexistent around here since then, Robey temporarily moved back home to Austin, Texas, to avoid the high cost of living in the San Francisco Bay area while looking for another position.
"Maybe I hang out with a positive group of people, but I think we all get that it's life," he said."You've got to roll with the punches, and things have to pick up."
Copyright 2002. Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
