Like many of the thousands of workers cut recently by Seattle-area tech firms, Eric, a former Amazon software engineer, recalls his layoff as a kind of one-two gut punch.
On top of the shock of losing a $200,000-plus salary-and-stock package, the 30-something Seattleite found himself in a job market that was more crowded, and much less generous, than it had been even six months before.
There were fewer openings, especially with Big Tech firms like Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook that had ruled the job market but were now in cost-cutting mode. And job offers rarely came with the jaw-dropping compensation tech had become famous for.
