December Tech Job Cuts Finally Down, Down, Down

Outsourcing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas announced job cuts for December, and finally high tech seems in sync with the rest of the nation's economy. Overall, announced job cuts fell to their lowest level since the beginning of the recession. In high tech -- which we've been considering as the combination of electronics, computers, and telecommunications -- last month's total finally broke through the four-digit floor. At 808, it was less than the next lowest sector total in September. Here's a summary of 2009:

Getting into line at all with other industries has proven difficult. The job market on a whole has seen five consecutive declines in monthly layoffs, but high tech has seen nothing approaching a straight line. The longest stretch of declines, three, was in the early part of the year. The volatility suggests that declaring the worst to be over is likely premature, and considering that consumer confidence still lags and that prices had to be slashed during the recent holiday season to get people to purchase, the big question becomes how long will it be until, instead of counting job cuts, we'll be able to track job additions.

That said, although we'll keep monitoring layoff activities, this will probably be the last monthly post on the subject for a while if the trend continues down. However, if there is a big change, we'll be back with more tables and charts.

Executioner image via stock.xchng user sateda, standard site license.