The Silicon Valley job market has turned south remarkably quickly.
eBay’s plans to slice 1,600 jobs could be followed by a second round of cuts at Yahoo on Tuesday. And as we reported today, many tech start-ups are scrambling to cut back now in anticipation of a severe downturn ahead.
So it doesn’t help that the Valley’s hirer of last resort has discovered a new self-discipline. Google’s expansion has been breath-taking: Until recently it’s headcount was growing by 15 per cent or more each quarter. But no more.
These charts show how times have changed (the picture is somewhat distorted by the acquisition of DoubleClick earlier this year, which led to a jump in overall employee numbers in the first quarter, followed by a quick drop in the second as Google cut 10 per cent of the DoubleClick staff. Without DoubleClick, the steady downward trend would have been clearer.)
Google only added around 500 people in the third quarter, lifting its employee numbers by 2.6 per cent, to 20,123. To Wall Street, which had worried that its headlong expansion showed a lack of control, this smacked of a much-needed discipline.
If you’re part of the Valley’s swelling band of job-seekers, though, this is another reason to feel gloomy.
