Tech Job Cuts Biggest Since 2002

There was a blizzard of pink slips in the first quarter.
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It's ugly out there in tech land. The recession has so far forced Yahoo! and Microsoft to lay off thousands; Oracle, Intel, Cisco and others are pruning their workforces too. Even the august Google has pared away at least 200 jobs in sales and several thousand part-time contractor jobs.

Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Monday that the number of tech-sector job cuts in the first quarter was 84,217--the biggest since the fourth quarter of 2002 when 133,511 jobs were slashed.

Challenger predicts that the job hemorrhaging will "remain heavy in the coming months."

In addition to laying off workers, companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Seagate and Advanced Micro Devices have reduced salaries. Yahoo! has instituted salary freezes, and others have suspended contributions to 401(k) plans.

Still, there's a sliver of a silver lining in the turmoil: Tech job cuts aren't expected to be nearly as deep as they were during the dot-com bust. According to Challenger, nearly 1.2 million jobs were lost in 2001 and 2002. This compares with about 240,000 cuts total in 2008 and first-quarter 2009.

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BY Wendy Tanaka
Source:Forbes

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