Washington: As many as 180,000 employees in IT and related areas will become jobless this year if the layoff announcements by companies are to maintain the current pace."At the current pace, the year-end total could reach 180,000, which would be the largest annual total since 2003, when technology firms announced 228,325 job cuts," says a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based global consulting firm which tracks job-cut announcements.
Telecommunications, electronics and computer industry companies had cut 140,422 jobs through October 31 this year, says the report, adding that 69,654 tech-sector jobs had been cut in the third quarter of the year alone. The report did not include major layoffs announced since October 31 such as the 5,000 to 6,000 job cuts at Sun Microsystems."
The tech sector is simply the latest victim in this downturn that began last year with the collapse of the housing market, and quickly spread to the financial markets," chief executive John Challenger said in a statement. "Businesses and consumers have slashed their spending and no industry is immune," he added.
The 180,000 job cuts in the tech sector would be the most since 2003 but would still be far fewer than the 695,581 jobs lost in 2001, with the bursting of the dot-com bubble. In 2007, a total of 107,295 tech-sector jobs were cut.
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