Mass layoffs across the U.S. technology industry have now claimed well over 300,000 jobs.
And yet, companies are still hiring in areas they see as mission-critical. Contract positions are still commanding $120-an-hour wages. The industry hasn’t seen cuts this deep since the dot-com bubble burst, but Linda Lutton, who has been recruiting for tech firms since 1987, says it doesn’t feel like a bust. For one, she said, firms are still taking her calls.
“I’m in constant contact with my tech clients, and they keep telling us, ‘We will come back,’ ” said Lutton, who recalls how clients suddenly stopped answering their phones during the dot-com crash of the early 2000s because they had folded overnight. “I haven’t had a single message from a single client saying, ‘We have to cut everything down.’ ”
