Trough times in the Valley

SMS from Silicon Valley

"It has been three months since I saw my husband," rues Vijaya Patel, who is hanging on to her job as a hardware engineer at a Silicon Valley company.

Patel and her husband are hardware engineers, with 15 years of experience. Patel's husband was laid off last year when the start-up he worked for filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After struggling for eight months, he finally found a job in Vermont "� a one-year contract position at IBM.

Now the couple is reduced to maintaining a long-distance marriage. They see each other every two months. "I guess I have become very philosophical after seeing my husband struggle to get a job. If I get laid off, I have decided that I will travel around a bit and enjoy myself, rather than fret over my next job," says Patel.

Patel's story is just one instance of how bleak things are at Silicon Valley, once the epicenter of the US economy, and in California.

For the first time in California's history, a governor may be recalled from his post. Governor Gray Davis, the Democratic governor of California, is fighting for his political survival after being re-elected just a few months ago.

Senator Diane Feinstein of the Democratic Party and Arnold Schwarzenegger of the Republican Party appear to be two candidates waiting in the wings.

To compound matters, the state has failed to pass a budget and has a deficit of billions of dollars. It has to come up with an effective plan to raise money to bridge the deficit gap.

The impact of the deficit is all too evident. The statistics speak for themselves: one in every six persons in Santa Clara county, the heart of Silicon Valley, is unemployed. One in 10 persons in San Jose is unemployed.

Finding a new job has become a challenge, and the average time for landing a new job is no longer a couple of days or weeks. Now it takes months and even more than a year.

"One of my friends has been looking for a job for a year now," says James Lee. Lee, who made it good during the dotcom boom, is now doing a sales job at a networking company to help pay his bills. "I looked for a close to a year, before I found the job."

Many schools and colleges are trimming their staff and course offerings. Many of the counties have had to cut back on hiring and lay off people. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

"It is extremely difficult to find a job now," confirms Gopal Iyer, a PeopleSoft DBA. "Many of my friend have been laid off and they are unable to find a job in the Valley. Plus, many companies are outsourcing their support and implementation work."

Iyer is now worried about his job. He, like many others, is anxiously watching the Oracle-PeopleSoft drama unfold. Ever since Larry Ellison announced the hostile takeover bid for PeopleSoft, another local Bay area company, the anxiety level has increased.

There are signs that the long-term impact of the depressed economy is taking a social toll on Californians.

For instance, a major health care organisation has started a programme to help people cope with their continued state of unemployment. One of the doctors said that her hospital is thinking of starting a group therapy session for unemployed people.

Says psychiatrist Maya Shastry: "People are paying out of their pockets to come and get help. I have seen an increase this past year in the number of unemployed people seeking help from us. The prolonged unemployment is impacting self esteem and interaction with family members."

Clearly, the golden state isn't quite golden any more. A retired Wall Street analyst paints a bleak picture: "Silicon Valley may become like Detroit in the 1980s and many of the jobs in the Valley have permanently disappeared. It will be a long time before Silicon Valley's economy turns around."

California is often described as the engine that pulls the rest of the American economy. However, the brief and dizzying dotcom interlude that punctuated the 1990s has taken its toll. The engine is low on fuel.

Hopefully, all the stimulus packages that the Federal government has announced, coupled with the low interest rate and the die-hard spirit of innovation, will bring the state's economy back on track.

(Kamla Bhatt is a freelance writer who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Comments can be emailed to her at kamlabhatt@yahoo.com)