Hope Eclipsed

Along with gobs of good jobs, the technology boom of the last decade nurtured a comforting faith that Moore’s Law--the dictum that the power of a microchip doubles every 18 months--applied to the economy as well.

But among no group has that faith been short-circuited more acutely than the young adults who scarcely remember a time when technological wonders such as the World Wide Web were not pushing stock prices--and expectations--ever higher. Now they face a world dramatically different from what they have known for the last decade--a future in which tech might not fix everything.

Just ask Jason Johnson, a 23-year-old Pepperdine University graduate who was in junior high during the last major recession. He quit his reporting job at the Ventura County Star newspaper to join Fox Sports’ Web site at the height of the dot-com boom.

Within a year, he was laid off, along with thousands of others his age across the country at technology companies big and small. He eventually went to work writing for a free fitness magazine started by some of his FoxSports.com colleagues.

“I was lucky,” he said. “Some other people don’t have jobs.”

And most aren’t counting on the Internet economy to provide them. Just 5% of students surveyed by online recruiter WetFeet.com said dot-coms were hot--down from 36% last year. High-tech companies that just a year or two ago couldn’t hire fresh graduates fast enough are now rescinding job offers made just months ago--instead announcing layoffs of more than 400,000 workers since the beginning of the year, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Despite the glum news, most young people entering the job market for the first time remain convinced that rapid changes in technology--from ever faster processors to wireless communication--will continue to shape the way the world lives.

Local colleges have noticed no significant drop in interest in programs in computer science or engineering. Web design classes remain full. And most majors incorporate technology in the curriculum.

“It’s not so much that the students are out on the street, [but] they may have fewer options than they had in the past,” said Jerry Houser, director of Caltech’s Career Development Center.

Houser and others who have watched the growth of technology’s economic power counsel young workers to take the long view. “Although there’s concern . . . there also seems to be a pretty good philosophical grasp of the nature of this downturn,” said Andrew Isaacs, executive director of the management of technology program at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Isaacs explained the current economic blahs are caused by the confluence of a general global slowdown, a cyclical sluggishness in semiconductors and computers and the bursting of the dot-com bubble.

He compared it to the downturn in the disk drive industry 10 years ago.

Although many companies went out of business then--and many people lost jobs--it was not the end of the high-tech industry. Downturns “are bad,” Isaacs said. “They affect people. People lose jobs. But Silicon Valley doesn’t blow away as if it were just an apparition.”

Still, finding--and keeping--a job in the industry is much more difficult now than it was a year or two ago.

Matt Liszt, who received his MBA from Berkeley in May, is still looking to land a product-marketing job for a company such as Sony or Electronic Arts. Many businesses, he said, are not hiring, but the 28-year-old continues to meet with recruiters and send out resumes.

“I may not land my dream job today, or even this year,” said Liszt, who explained that he doesn’t expect to get hired by a tech company on this go-round but possibly when things pick up. “I really feel like I’m interviewing for a second job.”

For some students, however, their definition of a “dream job” has changed drastically in the last year.

The same WetFeet.com study that revealed less faith in the Internet economy found that more established industries--such as management, investment banking and pharmaceuticals and biotechnology--saw an increase in student interest. The recent slowdown has “punctured the bubble of invincibility” surrounding many tech companies, said Steve Pollock, WetFeet.com president.

Although some students are shying away from high-tech careers now, the jobs they do pursue are still affected by technology. Berkeley, for example, did not create an MBA in e-commerce as did some other business schools, but educators have integrated technology into the curriculum so students are familiar with emerging trends.

“We’ve never really equated high tech and dot-com, just as we never equated high tech and the hard-drive industry,” Isaacs of Berkeley said.

At USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, where students have traditionally majored in either print or broadcast journalism, professors are moving toward a curriculum that would prepare all students to work in print, broadcast and online media.

“We want our students to be able to do everything,” said Larry Pryor, executive editor of the Online Journalism Review and director of the school’s online program.

Even Internet-related classes have remained popular.

John Chambers, a digital media instructor at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, increased the number of Web design classes in his schedule this year. During the spring semester, when many dot-coms were laying off workers, his night section was jammed with working professionals eager to create their own Web sites.

“I thought there would be no one to take the class,” he said.

Despite the portrayal in the media, the high-tech industry and job market are not as bad as they might appear, Houser of Caltech said.

It is too early to tell how recent layoffs and hiring freezes will affect the long-term economy. In the meantime, good students will still get good jobs.

“There’s always a market for college students who are sharp, who are bright, who put a little effort into” the job search, he said.

Even Liszt, who plans to look into a few job prospects next week, is optimistic. He said he thinks he still can find the same job that he would have found two years ago--he just has to work harder to find it.

“Just because the economy changed, I can’t change who I am,” he said. “I’m just going to have to roll up my sleeves.”

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Times staff writer Christine Frey covers personal technology.