In Silicon Valley, the Jobs Are Changing as Fast as Technology
Around this Silicon Valley town, people are used to changing jobs: A woman tells a neighbor that she’s hoping to be laid off this fall because, after several years of working on a defense electronics project, she needs a rest. She’s not worried about finding another job and plans to go back to work sometime next year. Defense jobs may be ending, but something else will come along, she says.
A state-of-the-art outplacement center that opened last month assists laid-off high-tech workers in “career networking.” Layoffs are expected to increase this fall, but some employment experts call it nothing more than normal “tech turnover.”
Although people seem acutely aware that the Silicon Valley may feel a pinch from defense and commercial manufacturing cutbacks, there is a blase attitude here. It’s a sharp contrast to the pervasive worry in Southern California’s defense industry, where cutbacks are also expected to wipe out thousands of jobs.
The difference seems to derive from how industry developed in the Silicon Valley. And the way this area copes with change and layoffs may offer clues about where the labor force as a whole is headed.
When integrated circuits first came on the scene in the 1950s and 1960s, the silicon wafers on which they are printed gave this area a new name and a new reputation. As brilliant young computer whizzes moved into the towns around San Jose, traditional industries--most notably the fruit packers and canners, who had been here for decades--gradually moved out.
For the most part, these whizzes were researchers and inventors, not businessmen. They often came from academic backgrounds, and they disdained corporate style. No neckties worn, no time clocks punched. They were also restless and, as with most theorists and researchers, always eager for the next challenge.
In addition, they didn’t need much capital investment to set up shop. Brains were their principal asset. Leaving one firm to work for a competitor--considered disloyal or worse in most industries--became the thing most techies did. And all the companies expected it--so much so that many had minimal employment benefits or pension plans. If few employees stayed more than three or four years, why bother?
Then there is the matter of youth. The industry is young--less than 30 years old, for the most part--and the work force is among the youngest in U.S. industry. Older employees frequently leave this industry because of its rapid job turnover and its focus on youth. Job security is less of an issue for those in the early years of their careers.
And the matter of obsolescence. By nature, high technology thrives on advancements and new products. Many products are obsolete no more than three years after they hit the market. What that means is that workers shift from project to project and product to product in an endless cycle of change. Loyalties are fleeting.
“There is a ‘cutting-edge junkie’ attitude here,” says journalist and Silicon Valley observer Mike Malone. “A fair number of these people get bored quickly and say, ‘Why should I stay here and work on this same old project when I can jump ship and do cutting-edge stuff?’ ”
Of course, as the industry grew, especially during the 1980s, some of these trends changed. Most notably, the bigger companies began offering better benefits to keep their employees from jumping.
But the short cycle of economic life continues. This has made the Silicon Valley a mobile and transient place, where people move in and leave constantly. The expectation of changing jobs and moving is a given--even a “tradition”--here.
That seems to account for the seeming lack of worry about layoffs, even though the signs are clearly evident. Some large employers have already made sizable cuts, and there are predictions that as many as 20,000 electronics manufacturing jobs could be lost over the next year. Many of those will be in defense projects, others in commercial semiconductors.
Something else will come along, one hears again and again. Technology and new products will develop. Some military projects are ending, the thinking goes, but advanced electronics and research must remain a part of future Pentagon budgets, no matter how much they shrink. If commercial semiconductor manufacturing is shrinking right now, all it means is that we’re in a lull between breakthroughs. Stay tuned.
Some of this optimism is the outgrowth of youthful enthusiasm in a new industry that has never had a prolonged downturn. Could a laid-off defense worker in Southern California be as buoyant, knowing that jobs are likely to be scarce for a long time and that his skills are no longer in big demand? The answer, of course, is no.
But the lessons of the Silicon Valley’s employment habits might still be transferable. The prospects for the technology business are as infinite as human imagination. And, in the truest sense, most jobs these days are technology-related.
The Silicon Valley has proved that technology makes products--and the workers who make them--become obsolete quicker. But that can be viewed more as an opportunity than a threat, as each new generation of products brings new jobs.
The rapidity of obsolescence also breeds new companies to produce new products, and indeed in the Silicon Valley--despite almost three decades of growth--75% of the employers still have fewer than 200 employees. More new products, more new companies, more new jobs.
The shorter the cycle between obsolescence and new products, the more frequently a worker may have to change jobs. In the Silicon Valley, they have learned to keep their bags packed.
EMPLOYMENT IN SANTA CLARA CO.
High-Tech Year Total manufacturing 1988 818,000 185,800 1989 828,700 190,400 1990* 834,500 186,300
*June 30
Source: Employment Development Department
