Tech Industry Announces Layoff Surplus

Well, there’s one thing on the rise amid this declining economy: job cuts.

The technology industry was supposed to cut 180,000 jobs in 2008; instead, it cut 186,955 jobs –up 74.2 percent from the 107,295 job cuts recorded in 2007. That’s the dismal word from recruitment outfit Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which helpfully notes that this is the largest industry workforce reduction since 2003, when tech suffered 228,325 layoffs.

Still a chance to break that record, though. Said Challenger, “Cuts could reach even higher in 2009, as there is no evidence yet that the economy has hit the bottom of this downward portion of the cycle. We almost certainly will not see a repeat of the 2008 first quarter, in which tech cuts totaled just 17,345.”