Lately, we’ve been hearing the stories of many of the people on the receiving end of the layoffs recently sustained by the tech industry. But there is another side to layoffs that doesn’t get told very often. That’s the story of the people who do the laying off, those who make the decisions about who stays and who goes.
Google, one of the nation’s great growth engines for employment, has essentially stopped hiring for the last month, according to several executives at the company.
It would seem we’ve got all the makings of a tech shipwreck.
In the past few days, Xerox, Yahoo and eBay each announced plans to cut thousands of jobs. Esteemed Silicon Valley VC firm Sequoia Capital is warning entrepreneurs that it’s time to batten down the hatches because the good times are over.
Like so many other personal experiences transformed by the Internet, getting canned need no longer be endured in quiet, isolating shame. Technology is allowing people to turn a traditionally private trauma into a quasi-public event, drawing quick moral support and even job referrals. “This is something that used to be shared over the dinner table. Now the whole world can watch and participate,” technology forecaster Paul Saffo said.
Yahoo’s after-market reaction to the company’s earnings news says it all: Yahoo down 8% percent and you gotta wonder just how bad this news is going to get before it gets any better. If it gets any better. Stunning for a company that says today it enjoys 2 billion page views a month in the U.S. alone.
Yahoo did share some good news: beating the street by 4 cents a share, posting 15 cents instead of the 11 cents analysts projected. Earningswhisper.com expected 14 cents–so Yahoo even beat that. It posted those numbers on as-expected revenue of $1.4 billion.
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