Cover those shorts on Starbucks! The WSJ news page says Tech Jobs Start to Come Back In U.S. After Three-Year Slump (paid-site only, sorry)
For the first time in several years, more workers are being hired than are being fired. Executives, recruiters and job applicants say the pace of hiring has picked up significantly this year. Companies are again raising salaries. Job applicants tell of competing offers. Even those still out of work say they sense improved prospects.
National Semiconductor Corp., of Santa Clara, Calif., is adding shifts at chip factories in Maine and Texas to meet surging demand. EMC Corp., a Hopkinton, Mass., maker of data-storage devices, added more than 300 engineering and sales jobs in the first quarter, about half of them in the U.S. Software giant Microsoft Corp. says it is on track with previously announced plans to add 5,000 employees in the fiscal year ending June 30, including 3,500 in the U.S.
"It's just infinitely more activity," says Mike Hanna, a San Rafael, Calif., recruiter for salespeople, primarily for software companies. Since the start of the year, Mr. Hanna, who typically works by himself, has hired two recruiters to handle the increased workload. Software executives "are more optimistic about where the business is going," he says.