Cash is king. It’s an old adage. But in good times, people seem to take it as meaning that spending cash is king. In hard times like the present, it’s all about conservation of cash. And as the economic woes from Wall Street spill out into the tech sector, companies are announcing widespread layoffs as they seek to reduce their burn rate, focus, and hunker down to ride out the storm.
It’s no different in the San Diego region. As the layoffs began to increase, capped by Monday’s announcement by Amylin Pharmaceuticals that it would trim back 25 percent of its staff, or 340 workers, we decided it was time to start tracking the fallout.
Below you’ll find our San Diego Layoff Litany (we’ve also done it for our other cities of Seattle and Boston, and you can find an overview of all our layoff trackers here). We are tracking layoffs in both technology and life sciences firms in the region since June 2008—with the count so far at 1,382. That number is sure to grow over time—and you can find the running total by scrolling to the bottom of the spreadsheet, which lists layoffs in reverse chronological order.
One note: To explore the “More Info” links in the table below, please right-click or command-click on the links, then select “Open Link in New Tab” or “Open Link in New Window.” Due to a quirk in Google Spreadsheets, clicking on these links directly will cause a new Web page to open inside the spreadsheet window.
If you have corrections or additions to the list, please let us know by writing to [email protected].
Author: Robert Buderi
Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. He is one of the country's foremost journalists covering business and technology. As a noted author and magazine editor, he is a sought-after commentator on innovation and global competitiveness. Before taking his most recent position as a research fellow in MIT's Center for International Studies, Bob served as Editor in Chief of MIT's Technology Review, then a 10-times-a-year publication with a circulation of 315,000. Bob led the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and oversaw its expansion into three foreign editions, electronic newsletters, and highly successful conferences. As BusinessWeek's technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for The Quality Imperative.
Bob is the author of four books about technology and innovation. Naval Innovation for the 21st Century (2013) is a post-Cold War account of the Office of Naval Research. Guanxi (2006) focuses on Microsoft's Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) covered a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and is an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC's Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation at many venues, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
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