SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY : Small County Firms Showed a Net Loss of Jobs in Past Year
Orange County’s small technology companies, normally the engines of this area’s economic growth, lost ground in the past year by cutting more jobs than they created.
In a monthly survey of 202 Orange County technology companies with fewer than 1,000 employees each, employment payrolls fell through December by 505 jobs, or 3.8%, to 12,647 people, compared to 13,152 a year earlier. In 1990, the same companies expanded employment by 2%.
The survey, conducted by the CorpTech research firm in Woburn, Mass., was taken from a database of 697 small technology companies in Orange County.
Not all the news was bleak. The survey noted that 46 of the companies created 584 new jobs in 1991. Of those firms, 26 companies expanded employment by more than 25%.
But that growth was offset by nine business failures that wiped out 523 jobs and layoffs at 30 other companies that eliminated 566 more jobs.
The 3.8% drop in Orange County contrasts with a 2.1% increase in employment among a sample of 6,115 technology firms nationwide, CorpTech said.
Among fast-growing companies in the survey were CSS Laboratories Inc., an Irvine manufacturer of computer hardware that grew 40% to 80 employees; Tayco Engineering Inc., a Cypress maker of assorted electrical equipment that grew 20% to 112 employees; and ABB Composites Inc., an Irvine producer of composite materials that grew 16% to 87 employees.
About 3.2% of the 21,670 technology manufacturers tracked by the research firm are based in Orange County, where they employ 46,381 people, according to CorpTech.
