“Former technology industry employees are aware of it. Merrill Lynch is aware of it. Practically anyone who watches television or listens to the radio is aware of it-the fact that the technology industry seems to be losing some ground these days. Employment agencies are scrambling to find new jobs for people who have worked in the technology industry and found their jobs gone in as little as a day. Infree.com, of Federal Way, was a good example of a tech company that seemed to have all the trappings of success-but from which over 80 employees walked away with hardly any warning and a virtual pink slip.I think it’s a situation where the growth is slowing down, but I’m not sure if there’s an overall decline, or just a slow down in what has been phenomenal growth, said Tom Stinson, regional vice president for General Employment, Bellevue, a job-placement company.His company provides administrative support to technical companies-customer service, secretaries, administrative, executive and sales support–the employees that are usually the first to go when things slow down.There certainly is the perception that the economy is cooling down, Stinson said, and a lot of attention is given the number of tech companies that close. But that there are just as many tech companies that are doing very well.Stinson said he just read that for the fifth November in a row, unemployment in the state is still below five percent.That’s good, he said. There is a transition going on with these businesses going out of business, but they get more press than larger companies do who also lay off because they are techs. It alters our perception, but it helps to balance that with the knowledge that the overall unemployment is still relatively low.The slow down of the economy is more than perception. It is a fact, and one market traders are well aware of.According to information released by Merrill Lynch on Wednesday, Information technology (IT) and utilities are seen posting only a growth of 10 percent each. For technology, that’s down from the 30 percent growth rate enjoyed over the past couple of years and down from Merrill’s previous estimates of a 15 percent growth rate.Instead, the strongest earnings growth expected by Merrill Lynch in 2001 will be in the healthcare and energy sectors, with operating earnings-In per-share growth pegged at 14 percent for both.It has never been easy to track changes taking place in the technology industry and that probably won’t change, according to Christopher Johnson, regional labor economist for Tacoma/Olympia. It’s not an industry category–technology that is, Johnson said. Dot coms don’t show up in a given industry. They literally are scattered all over. Some show up in the service sector, some in retail. Depends on what they actually do. Some might show up with electrical equipment.He said that dot com firms have tremendous creative ideas with new technologies and ways to access the market place, but their plans were beyond their resources. So layoff notices now are at new companies funded originally on venture capital that probably never achieved profit in the short term, and didn’t have a realistic plan for achievement for their investors.As far as layoffs in the tech industry are concerned, he said We might not be talking large, but if it’s not a thousand jobs moving, it’s considered small.Johnson echoed Stinson’s comments in regard to the shrinkage of companies in the tech market that, It’s basically the classic investment category of what goes up must come down, Johnson said. A lot of these businesses were floating on sizzle. When the sizzle was gone, they came back to earth resulting in reorganizations and layoffs.The unemployment level is still very low for the state, he said, but added that the labor market and force is a lagging indicator, not a leading indicator, and that it will be another month before employment statistics for this month are are available.As an interesting side note, Johnson added that in a period of economic expansion, employers put off hiring unless they absolutely need to. At the same time, he said, they also don’t want to let people go until they absolutely have to, even if it is the correct business decision.Another job-placement agency that has kept busy this last year is Programming & Consulting Services, Inc., out of Tukwila, Portland, and Olympia.The company finds employment for information technology (IT) professionals as contractors or in permanent positions.According to Julie Marshall, an account manager who works in the Tacoma area, We meet our client’s technical staffing needs with programmers, systems administrators, IT managers, data-based administrators, network administrators, and testers (professionals who test software).Marshall said she knows when a company is about to lay off employees or go under, When we see a wave of resumes and notes on them not to contact a current employer, she said. We know something negative is going on and then in a week or two we’ll get a notice that they’ve laid off people. However, she added, There are no big changes, really. Our work has been pretty stead all year.As an added note, Marshall said that anyone coming out of a tech school is hard to place and made some suggestions for them to be gainfully employed at graduation.They are better off to go directly to an employer for work or try to find a company that offers an internship for an entry level person, she said. Then whether the internship offers pay or not, they’ll get the experience they need to be employable. Programming & Consulting Services can be contacted at 1-800-995-8917. “