The San Francisco daily online newspaper, SFGate, from which I garner much local information, is now going to host a database of layoffs (really job eliminations) within companies doing business in California.
Per SFGate:
Beginning today, a database of such news will be available at SFGate.com, consisting of a list of companies doing business in California that have announced major layoffs, plant closures or relocation of workers.
State law requires a 60-day notice of plant closures, layoffs or relocation of 50 or more employees under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
The list of WARN notices is going up on The Chronicle Web site less than a week after the announcement that the nation’s unemployment rate reached a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October, and about three weeks after the state Employment Development Department reported that the September unemployment rate held steady at 7.7 percent.
The WARN notices can be found here.
It’s deja vu all over again. Only last time we read about things like this on Fucked Company. Oh wait, didn’t TechCruch acquire them in 2007?
Where’s Pud when we need him?
One company I interviewed with recently for an executive role, the CEO let me know a week later that it went wonderfully and they thought I had a lot to offer me, but they were conserving resources until seeing how things shook out with the “economic nuclear winter,” so we should be in touch again in a month to see where we both are then.
I’ve gotten this same impression from several clients I consult for as well as potential employeers who’d contacted me before the fallout started.
Yes, it does feel quite familiar.
The big difference between this and the dot-bomb? This time seems to be more sudden and to affect from the beginning even companies that are doing well.