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>Well, it really looks bad. Are there any plans or business moves to help in the IT field in your area?
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>For us here it looks bad in some areas but apparently not as serious as it is in your region.
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>I just read some days ago that IT budget are beginning to go up again. Perhaps that will help a little. It should with all of the web services, .Net apps and all of those new cool things that will need to be done ;-)

Denis;

When we had our 1990-95 recession we had 60,000 electronics engineers unemployed. The jobs were lost and some companies moved to areas like Austin, Texas or folded up. When President Bush (the elder) came to Silicon Valley during his Presidential Campaign he was asked, “What are you going to do to help the unemployed electronics engineers”? To which President Bush replied, “There are plenty of jobs at McDonalds”!

Clinton was elected as President and during his two terms in office flew to Silicon Valley over 70 times to meet with business, local, state and federal government officials. He build an alliance between all these entities to help the unemployed professionals, not just the electronics engineers. As an example I went to college for six months to learn C programming, resume and job interviewing skills. The average professional who was unemployed at that time was taking 11 months average to find a job. Today it is longer.

Silicon Valley for about the last 20 years has provided 25% of this nations exports specifically electronics and software technology. I see this area as very important to the economy of the nation.

President Bush (the younger) has not visited Silicon Valley except to promote Simon for Governor, (Simon lost) and has not done anything to assist our area. Many see this as our payment in return for not voting for him for president.

We can hope that things will get better for the world and all workers!

Tom