Layoffs considered by 18% of major Silicon Valley companies; Bay Area officials halt most construction projects.
More companies also report they are contemplating layoffs
About 18 percent of major employers in Silicon Valley are contemplating layoffs as hiring activity crumbles in the Bay Area, according to a pair of forbidding new reports that underscore how the coronavirus has bludgeoned the region’s once-robust economy.
“My fear is that the number of companies that say they are planning layoffs is only going to grow,” said Carl Guardino, president of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which polled 100 CEOs in the South Bay region.
In a separate report, hiring activity has tumbled in the Bay Area, yet this region’s employment picture is far stronger than the hiring malaise that has afflicted Los Angeles and New York, according to the Institute for Regional Studies unit of Joint Venture Silicon Valley.
“It’s useful to understand the magnitude of hiring declines in the Bay Area and compare them to other regions,” said Rachel Massaro, director of the Institute for Regional Studies for Joint Venture Silicon Valley.
During March compared with February, hiring in the Bay Area plunged 4.8 percent, a report from the Insitute for Regional Studies unit of Joint Venture Silicon Valley shows.
The Bay Area hiring slump revealed by the report is a fresh example of how the coro
navirus can infect a region’s economy.
During March compared with February, Los Angeles County was the nation’s weakest hiring market, with a 15.2 percent decline, followed closely by New York City’s hiring implosion of 15 percent, the
study found.
Hiring in the United States droped by 1.3 percent in March compared with February, which means the hiring decline in the Bay Area was 3.7 times greater than the national trend, the Institute’s analysis determined.
The Joint Venture Silicon Valley economics survey unit culled its data from a LinkedIn Economic Graph of hiring trends in an array
of metro areas around the nation.
In the Silicon Valley Leadership Group poll related to upcoming layoffs, when asked whether they were now in a position where “layoffs are necessary,” 13 percent responded yes. When asked if they were “considering layoffs,” 5 percent replied yes, according to the results of that poll, which was conducted during the week of
March 30.
On a hopeful note, 61 percent of the respondents said they were either continuing to hire or were still hiring at the usual pace of increasing their staffing levels.
“We are still hiring, but only for essential positions” was how 42 percent responded to the poll questions. “Business as usual regarding our hiring needs and policies” was how 19
percent described their current recruiting and staffing efforts, the poll determined.
Another 21 percent of the companies that responded stated that they have frozen hiring at present.
“We think it is going to be helpful for employers to learn from each other,” Guardino said.