A host of beleaguered technology companies announced a staggering 31,000 worldwide job cuts Thursday, marking one of the worst days for layoffs since the tech bubble burst a year ago.
Thursday's moves from a variety of tech titans, which already are slogging through the worst year in the industry's history, caused analysts to wonder whether the carnage would get even worse and when it would come to an end.
"I don't think anybody has the faintest idea," said Richard Shaffer, principal with Technologic Partners in New York. "My guess is the CEOs who are doing it are clueless. When sales start to tank, they don't know what else to do."
More than 300,000 tech jobs, nearly 40% of the U.S. total, have been eliminated in the first half of this year, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago outplacement firm. Along the way, the tech industry has fallen from its position as the U.S. economy's hero to being its Achilles' heel. New orders for equipment such as personal computers and other gadgets have shrunk at their fastest pace ever--49.2% on an annualized basis--in the last year, according Moody's Investors Service Inc.
"When times get tough, people don't buy the new car, they don't buy the new PC, and they don't buy the new Palm," Shaffer said.
Business spending is off just as sharply. Telecommunications companies, which are drowning in a surplus of equipment amid plummeting demand, reported the deepest cuts Thursday.
French telecom equipment maker Alcatel said it will shed more than 10,000 jobs in addition to the 5,800 cuts announced earlier this year. San Jose-based JDS Uniphase, which makes fiber-optic components, added 7,000 workers to its previous tally of 9,000 layoff victims. And Silicon Valley bellwether Hewlett-Packard Co. announced 6,000 layoffs as it warned that its revenue will be well below Wall Street's expectations because of plunging consumer sales.
A few smaller companies, including German chip maker Infineon Technologies, New Jersey communications software maker Avaya Inc., El Segundo-based International Rectifier and data storage device maker Quantum Corp. of Milpitas, Calif., announced additional cuts totaling 8,000 jobs.
The tally from tech companies on Thursday alone exceeds by nearly one-third the 24,356 U.S. layoffs announced by companies during all of last week, according to International Strategy & Investment Group, or ISI, in New York.
