Tech industry struggles with layoffs, but IT sector helps bulk ranks - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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But the tech industry has not been immunes tothe recession, which has caused even the region’d most promising startups to scale back. Information technology services-related jobs in the four-countt region were up 2.5 percent between 2006 and 2008, accordinfg to employment numbers gathered by thestate , while all othe r technology jobs, including those in computer and electronic s manufacturing and telecommunications, fell 3.8 percentf in that same time period.
Those who have lost theifr jobssay it’s a particularly difficult time to find tech work in the but it can be done through planning and “There are jobs out there, but it is a tough said Phil March, who was laid off in Augusf by , a Folsom company that has developed wireless-sensof network technology. SynapSense laid off more than 20 percengt of its staffof 40. Marcjh landed a job in product management early this yearat , a flash-memoru supplier founded last year as a joint venture between and . Numonyx employs more than 400 in Folsom.
Marcb “grew up in tech” in the Bay working for before landing a job at Just as he lostthat job, the economy took a turn for the It took “some pretty serious networking” to figure out therwe were at least two Numonyx and Co., doing some hiring at the March said. Ultimately, it was a former colleague at SynapSensew — who also was laid off — who helped him land the job at Numonyx. “He had workedd at Intel for many years so he had an in March said. “I feel like I got lucky, not because I don’t have a good background but becaus the environment had turnedso dark.
” Nate Cammack was vice presidentt of finance at tech consultinb and software firm in Folsom until a couplde of weeks ago. Cammack, who left AgreeYa for personak reasons, got his start in the tech industry in 1971. He’s lived in the Sacramentpo region for12 years, but eighg of those years he worked outsides the area, like many other “technologyu types.” Living here — wherde the tech community is “relatively — makes it easy to think about leavinh the industry, he said. His advice for himself included, is to be aggressive abouy networking.
This is a time to “get off your butt, get out of the hous and get in frontof people,” he “It’s a time to communicate and communicate a huge he said. The battered economu has led toaggressive cost-cutting efforts and hiring freezes at tech employerds throughout the region in the past year. While cuts announced in January by Intel had no impacg onthe company’s Folsom operation, previous job losse s at Intel (NYSE: INTC) Folsom over the past coupl of years total about The company employs 5,9543 in Folsom. Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and (Nasdaq: AAPL) also have shed jobs in the past though it’s unclear how many.
But the IT secto r has been a cushion for the Randi Weitzman, branch manage r for IT staffing firm in Sacramento, said she’s not surprisexd at the numbers. The IT sectorr had “a nice increase” in the first quartert comparedto fourth-quarter 2008, she Jobs opened up for programmers, Web developers and project she said. “We’re finding that informatio technology positions are stillout there,” she said. “It’s a really good time to get into More companies are looking to use technology to run moreefficient businesses, she Those doing the hiring include governmen t agencies, associations, nonprofits, financial institutions and consultingb firms.