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Posted
on 17-Oct-02 01:51 AM
The downturn that won't go away
LONG TECH SLUMP EXACTING HEAVY TOLL ON VALLEY
By Mary Anne Ostrom
Mercury News
These days, Judy Conner signs her e-mails ``Cheers and Courage.''
She added ``courage'' after losing her dot-com job 15 months ago.
As Silicon Valley slips into a third straight year of economic turbulence, with no turnaround in sight, anxiety about what lies ahead has replaced confidence in the very spot celebrated as the birthplace of the future.
After submitting 473 résumés, Conner starts work next week at a valley think tank, the Foresight Institute.``There were several days where I didn't leave my house or my room,'' the San Jose public relations manager confessed. ``It takes courage to get your butt out of bed every morning.''
While nearly 1 million people go to work in Santa Clara County every day, two years of economic decline is exacting a heavy toll on the employed and the unemployed alike.
The rounds of layoffs and triple-digit Dow Jones average losses are unceasing, testing the valley's fortitude in ways not experienced for a decade, and in some cases two.
For many, worry has turned to fear. Nervousness to anxiety. Resilience to resentment.More than $1 trillion has been sliced from the market value of the valley's 150 largest companies since 2000. Nearly 90,000 Santa Clara County jobs are gone in two years.
This past summer, the state's record $24 billion budget deficit, swelling as income-tax revenue plummeted, reached the equivalent of $750 for every California resident.
And things could get worse before they are better.
Only last week, Cisco Systems Chief Executive John Chambers -- a relentless valley cheerleader -- declareBill Ingram, 42, lost his engineering job at broadband company Copper Mountain Networks in August 2001. ``It hurts when you've spent half your adult life doing something, and all you get is an automatic e-mail response about your résumé, like you're in a black hole,'' he said.
Ingram, of Palo Alto, worked at Orchard Supply for a while to pay child care bills. But permanent prospects eluded him, and he made the decision in spring to become a math teacher.
d that in his entire career he has never seen such a cautious attitude about spending on technology. Values of shares in Cisco, briefly in 2000 the world's most valuable company, have fallen 30 percent in the past eight weeks.
Looking ahead, four in 10 valley residents say they expect the financial bad times to continue and unemployment to grow in the coming year, a new survey by San Jose State University's Survey and Policy Research Institute finds.
``The mass psychology of endless good times has reversed. There's a whole generation who believe they will never find a job in technology again,'' he said.
After seven years in the valley, Marifaith Hackett, 45, of Belmont, is prepared to move back to her hometown of Chicago. She has an interview there Monday. Even armed with a doctorate in chemistry and a master's in business administration from the University of Chicago, Hackett has only landed one temporary position since losing her job in February.
``WheneveLaid off twice since 1999, Tuan Bui, 35, is giving up looking for electrical technician work. He is taking accounting classes from Goodwill Industries.
``I figure companies need accountants -- in good times and bad,'' Bui said.
r I see a little bit of spark in the job market, it fizzles,'' she said.
Leslie Iglesias, 25, was unemployed for seven months after losing her job at a non-profit agency aiding immigrants. She now earns $8 an hour as a gas-station cashier, enough to afford English classes that she hopes will make her more employable. ``I know many people are worried, and in the same situation I am in,'' said Iglesias, who left El Salvador for Mountain View two years ago.
Yet, for others, Silicon Valley has lost all promise.
At 50, CJ Rogers has never lived outside of California, until now. The former director of a Los Gatos child care program moved to Tucson in July.
Her husband's job loss and the lure of affordable housing led her to ``quit California cold turkey.''
But she is having withdrawal symptoms.
Interviewed on the day she received her new Arizona license plates, Rogers lamented, ``It was so hard to unscrew those California plates. I didn't want to do it.''
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