

Unemployment in Silicon Valley higher than after dot-com bubble burst - baran
http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-silicon-valley-unemployment-skyrockets-to-12-2009-7

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smhinsey
Not that it lessens the blow any, but it's worth mentioning that these figures
are across the entire employment spectrum. Some of the commenters mention
large hits in management, but it can also represent the freefall in
construction and other especially vulnerable blue collar/service industries.

Probably because I am in the midst of starting my own job search and targeting
SF/SV, I got a little unnecessarily worried. This is not a tech job specific
figure.

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donaldc
Unemployment may be higher, but strangely I'm noticing that rush-hour traffic
is still a lot worse than during the dotcom bust, when traffic jams on 101
nearly disappeared for a while.

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prakash
folks going for interviews could explain that.

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joshuaxls
I personally don't see this myself. I work for a profitable startup in SF and
we've had a hell of a time finding good hires. The problem may be that we do
PHP development and the market is saturated with ex-lifers who are Java and
.NET aficionados. I know a handful of other startups feel the same way.

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w1ntermute
" _we've had a hell of a time finding good hires_ "

I'm inclined to believe that no matter _how_ bad the economy gets, it's
_always_ difficult to find truly good hires. The kind of people that you want
are going to be the last people to lose their jobs in times like these; on the
contrary, they're going to be kept around and worked overtime as a mechanism
for reducing costs.

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robotron
This isn't necessarily true - great employees can't usually control those who
make the decisions that might run a company into the ground.

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ardit33
but they usually find jobs right away. Like within a month or two, if not,
they just start their own project/startup.

I know this for a fact/personal anecdotal evidence.

It seems that this downturn is hitting more the general work force, and people
that do more 'soft' type of work: managers, marketing, pr, etc.

If you are a hard core engineer, you shouldn't have trouble finding a job.

The exception will be people that just came out of college, or with less than
two years of experience. It seems that right now companies are hiring more
experienced/hit the ground running, engineers. During boom times, when they
can't find these kind of engineers, they will hire less experienced ones, and
be willing to train them and become productive.

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GavinB
As my cousin says, "unemployment payments mean that my startup is funded."

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dustineichler
Last time everyone left for Austin... where's everyone going now. I don't
really see the same kind of departure.

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ivankirigin
Bubble was a equity problem, not something affecting the general public.

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bigbang
Not sure what you mean by general public , but it sure did affect employment
in tech industry by a LOT

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ivankirigin
Tech industry unemployment stats would be relevant then. I only skimmed, but
it appears to be talking about general unemployment.

By "general public" I mean that it's harder on everyone - not particularly
hard on tech. I'm sure the stats show that the dotcom bubble was worse for
tech workers.

